ROCHELLE — At its monthly meeting Tuesday, the Rochelle Elementary School District Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution of intent to issue $4 million in working cash fund bonds related to upcoming work at Tilton Elementary School.

The district is currently in the process of working towards $14-16 million worth of needed renovations at Tilton School after finding in a health life safety evaluation that an estimated $7.9 million worth of work is required at the school for those issues. Health life safety concerns the physical safety of the building for students and staff to occupy. The district plans to issue bonds for that money and wants to utilize an additional $6-8 million from its reserves for other improvements involving security and spatial concerns including its pick-up and drop-off areas. The work will be done in a three-year plan, beginning this year.

The Illinois State Board of Education recently returned the district's health life safety survey and only approved $4 million of the $7.9 million requested by the district, District Business Manager Kevin Dale said. To capture the needed funds to complete all of the work at Tilton School, the board chose to plan on the working cash issuance to make up the difference in funding after the ISBE decision came back. The working cash issuance will not cost any additional fees and both fundings will be combined into one sale. The working cash issuance will also give the district more flexibility in paying for repairs and construction.

"The decision on doing this will be made at next month's board meeting," Dale said. "We're also going back to the state and asking why they denied some of the things that are definitely health life safety on the list that we had. We're trying to make sure we're not short and continue doing improvements that need to happen."

The board also unanimously approved an asbestos removal bid for Tilton School for $43,850 from NES, Inc., which was the low bid. Dale said the company has done work in the past at Tilton School and the project is planned to begin in the summer.

Farm

The board unanimously approved the extension of a cash rent agreement for the farming of land that the district owns. Gensler Farms has been farming the land on a cash rent agreement with the district since the district purchased the land. The terms of the agreement will remain the same as last year, as the tenant agreed to pay $275 per acre for the 14 tillable acres.

Personnel

The board unanimously approved personnel changes including the retirement of Mark Mathieu effective May 29, the employment of Melissa Frankfother as a long-term substitute, the 2024-2025 employment of Jasmine Mondragon (fourth grade bilingual teacher - dual) and Josie McCune (third grade teacher at Central School), the transfers for 2024-2025 of Lillian Andrew (Rochelle Middle School art teacher to K-5 art teacher at Central, Lincoln and Tilton Schools), Mercedes Barrentos (paraprofessional at Tilton to paraprofessional at Lincoln & Stepping Stones Preschool), Vanessa Belmonte (substitute/student teacher to sixth grade Spanish social studies teacher), Phoebe Hughes (eighth grade special education teacher to student growth coach at Lincoln), Jeannette Mingus (fourth grade at Tilton to student growth coach at Tilton), Alva Valle (district bilingual substitute to art teacher at RMS) and Sam Volkert (substitute teacher at RMS to sixth grade science teacher), and the rehiring of of a third-year teacher for tenure beginning in 2024-2025 for Stacey Horstmeier (third grade teacher at Central).

Last day

District Superintendent Jason Harper noted during the meeting that the last day of school this year in the elementary school district for students is Tuesday, May 28. The last day of school for teachers will be Wednesday, May 29.