The Feb. 2, 2025, Kaneland board meeting focused on several topics, including the school district’s five-year financial projection, the first reading of the upcoming 6-8 course book and the consideration of Kaneland High School’s weighted grades. All board members besides Jennifer Simmons were present.
Other topics that were mentioned were the approval to seek bids for spring 2025, including approving the re-signing of contracts attached to the district’s fuel, copy paper and the security services.
The meeting was called to order at 6:02 p.m., followed by superintendent salutes made by Superintendent Dr. Kurt Rohlwing. He gave a shout out to Kaneland Harter Middle School Principal Brian Faulkner, who was named Middle School Principal of the Year for the Kishwaukee region. Rohlwing continued salutes by inviting Director of Human Resources Dr. Chris Adkins to the podium to introduce new Fox Valley Career Center Director Bob Gosh, who will begin his position next school year.
Next, Assistant Superintendent for Business Dr. Jackie Bogan presented the district’s five-year financial projections presentation for the board. Bogan highlighted the budget that the district expects next year and how they plan to have expected budgets from the state and federal levels. . The district has a $76.4 million operating budget, and they expect to gain 22 million dollars from new construction in the upcoming years. She also spoke about how the referendum, if passed, would allow the district to plan ahead and spend more money proactively.
“Our goal is to have a balanced budget to provide long term financial stability for the district,” Bogan said.
Rohlwing then invited Director of Educational Services 6-12 Dr. James Horne to the podium to present the first reading of the 6-8 course book. Horne made it clear to the board that there was no change of classes, whether added or removed, from this course book. Some of the classes with new titles are seventh grade music, which is planned to become rock band, and eighth grade performing arts, which would be called acting. Horne’s goal is to align the titles of the electives to ones offered at the high school level.
“We want the kids not to earn credit, but to find new careers,” Horne said.
Following that, Horne continued to present, but switched to sharing about the Kaneland High School grade weighting policies. Kaneland is the only district in the surrounding area that does not weigh enhanced (honors) classes differently than standard classes. The board asked for enhanced classes to be considered on a 5.0 scale beginning with the 2026-27 school year.
The meeting neared conclusion with student representative Sarah Slattery acknowledging the success of the girls basketball senior night and their 55-51 win against Morris High School. Slattery also mentioned the boys basketball team, who secured their 23rd win in a row against Sycamore High School on Friday, Feb. 7. The Academic Challenge of Engineering and Science (ACES) team, band and girls bowling team were also recognized for their successes.
Rohlwing ended the meeting with another round of superintendent salutes, where he shared the K-5 mystery story opportunity. Author Mr. Jay is inviting students to write a mystery story that could be featured in his upcoming book, Patrick Picklebottom’s Everyday Mysteries: Book 2. The field trip to Met-L-Flo in Sugar Grove for the Capstone. Engineering and Engineering Project Management students will take place on Feb. 21. Rohlwing mentioned the success of the girls wrestling team, who won the Rock Falls Regional championship on Feb. 1 and qualified seven girls for Sectionals. The boys wrestling team qualified six boys for Sectionals. In addition, Rohlwing added that the high school’s Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) qualified 18 members for the State finals. Finally, Rohlwing shared that he attended the kindergarten registration at John Stewart Elementary School on Saturday, Feb. 8, during which they registered 200 members of the class of 2038.
In a future meeting, the board plans to discuss the safety of traffic patterns at Blackberry Creek Elementary School.
The meeting ended with a closed session with no possible action as a result. The next board meeting will be held on Monday, Feb. 24.
