The District 205 School Board approved a new calendar for the 2023/24 school year this week. Board members considered two different calendars with only two glaring differences. One starts the year on Aug. 10 and includes a weeklong fall break. The other starts the year on Aug. 16 and does not include the fall break. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund said that he was recommending the earlier start to the school year to combat learning loss better and to experiment and see if giving a fall break would help fight truancy. "We feel like this fall break may increase attendance if people have shorter times where they have to get to a break and they'll come to school more and we'll have better attendance," Dr. Asplund told the board on Monday. "We feel like it's worth a year-shot and if it doesn't go well then we say, 'okay, we tried that and it didn't work.' But we feel like it's something that is not that big of a departure from this curr
The District 205 Board of Education held off this week on adding more solar arrays to King and Silas elementary schools. The district had approved solar arrays for different schools in the district in recent years and has seen significant savings already. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund said that conservatively speaking, the district has saved $172,421.89. These savings are seen with increased energy usage at the Galesburg Junior Senior High School building with the addition of air conditioning. Asplund presented the proposal to add an array to the ground behind King Elementary and to the rooftops of Silas Willard on Monday night. "Where we were getting 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, now it's at 5.5," Dr. Asplund told the board on Monday. "Other people are signing these at 7 [cents] because the cost of electricity – everything is going up. Inflation has made everything crazy." District 205 January personnel report: Who is coming, going within Galesburg schools?
The District 205 school board was given a breakdown of its electricity expenses since the approval of the solar energy agreement and the renovation work at buildings around the district. Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operation Jennifer Hamm told the board the district is seeing a savings of $79,772.83. These savings have been seen even after several buildings saw significant expansions from the district-wide building renovation project and the addition of air conditioning at King Elementary. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund told the board that the district is looking at other avenues to expand on solar energy. "We're in the preliminary stages but I'm talking to two different companies," Asplund said Monday night. "I want to see the feasibility of buying it rather than doing the PPA, the power purchase agreement. There are a lot of factors that go into that and we'll have to see how long our appetite is for payback on that. Obviously over time, i
The District 205 Board on Monday approved the transfer of Churchill Junior High School to the City of Galesburg. The School Board last week approved the sale of Nielson Elementary School to the Galesburg Rescue Mission but didn't make any decision on Churchill, which is anticipated on being closed by the start of next year. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund said the reason the district didn't take action on Churchill was so that additional language could be added giving them priority consideration if the city decided to gift or sell the Churchill property in the future. "The common comments from the board last Monday was we want to have the right, if the city decides at a later date they want to sell the building, gift the building, transfer the building, we want to at least have the right to decide if we want it back," said Asplund at the meeting. "That doesn't mean we have to take it. It just means we have the right of first refusal. Much like when we boug
The District 205 Board of Education Monday night approved a resolution to sell Nielson Elementary School with a minimum bid of $735,000. This is $91,000 less than the minimum bid for the same resolution from September. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund said there were three interested parties but that the $826,000 minimum bid was too high for them. "I will tell you, based on the conversations I had with the bidders who were interested and had tours, they were concerned about the number we originally put out," Asplund told the school board. "There are three bidders who I would consider to be serious that I know of. They are very much aware of the price. They are very much aware of the fact that we're trying to sell it." The process was to put the building up for sale through a sealed bid auction. With a minimum price set, bidders would submit their sealed bids to the district and the highest three bidders would be given the option, on the day the bids were unseale