Altamont School Board Addresses Personnel Moves

Altamont school board members addressed several personnel moves at Monday night's meeting.

The Board accepted the resignations of Carrie Schultz and Kelsey Burrow as teachers, but hired Lisa Reardon as a teacher and assigned her to second grade and hired Logan Hill as a teacher and assigned him to teach Industrial Arts and Ag Tech.

Board members also hired Dwight Homann as a bus driver and hired Giles Gieseking as a crossing guard to work on the Illinois Route 128 crossing. Also, Grace Ziegler was named 8th grade girls basketball coach, and Nikki Tedrick will coach band flags. 

The Board tabled the Birth-to-Three Early Childhood Prep Program until the September Board meeting, discussed a Board self-evaluation and a review of all Board processes and policies, approved applying for a raffle license, and approved an Altamont and Brownstown golf co-op. The Board also approved a revised high school Tardy policy.

High school principal Jerry Tkachuk said parents have been going in to register their children throughout the early days of August, so thinks maybe "open enrollment" would work as well as "online registration". Tkachuk also reported on SAT scores. He said students performed at their same levels as in 2017, although one area of writing is significantly improved.

Tkachuk also reported that the 2018 Kickoff for Education Breakfast will be held September 12 at the Thelma Keller Convention Center with Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti as guest speaker.

For his part, new Altamont Superintendent Steven Mayerhofer said he's been busy. He's joined the Lions Club, attended a local church, held Meet and Greets with staff, held an initial meeting with administrators, met with local superintendents, met many staff members, and met to analyze the district budget. Mayerhofer discussed a new tool for school finance reporting and meeting new reporting requirements of the State. He said he feels the District's goals of improving transparency and communication would be met. The system would cost a little over $14,000.