North Greene honors several seniors during meeting
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By Carmen Ensinger
North Greene School Board members paid homage to several seniors during its May meeting on May 18. Students were honored for everything from their athletic and academic prowess to their leadership skills.
Bailey Berry received the Rotary Scholar Award for leadership. The Silver Medallion Award, sponsored by Lewis and Clark Community College and the Alton Telegraph is an award given to the top eight percent of the senior class. This award was given to Sarah Ralston, Taylor Gilmore, Justin Chapman, Samantha Poe and Kahsey Poe. The Illinois State Scholar Award is given to those seniors who possess superior academic skills based on their ACT and SAT scores. This award went to Justin Chapman and Taylor Gilmore.
High School Principal Amanda Macias informed the board about two new electives that will be offered at the high school and junior high next year.
“We were approached by the English teacher to offer an elective, Introduction to Theatre,” Macias said. “The kids are really excited about. A couple of other schools are getting credit for it. We are also in the process of adding coding to grades 7-12.”
Macias said Jackie Kessinger and Logan Staats would like to be trained to teach those classes. There would be a cost associated with that, but that cost could come from Title I funding. She also said that in the past a lot of people have been wanting coding to be taught.
Macias also said that transitional English will be added next year. The district currently has transitional math, but not English.
“Right now, since we have the transitional math, you are able to take the math course and if you pass that with a C, then you get a code on your transcript saying if you going to an Illinois school that partners with us then you will not have to take a remedial math course, depending on what avenue you take,” Macias said. “It is not something mandated by the state, but I think some college are getting ahead with it. We will be partnering with Lewis and Clark.”
The district has had nine students sign up for next year’s Certified Nurses Assistance (CNA) program next year.
“To date, we have had 23 students go through the program and had 21 pass their State Boards so we are pretty excited about that,” Macias said. “If we continue, then we will have graduated 30 students through this program at the end of next year.”
On another note, they have eight students signed up in the welding program for next fall.
Dean of Students Brett Berry reported on a vaping issue in the district.
“We have had a big uptick with vaping in the district,” Berry said. “A lot of it comes from the kids ratting each other out. Kids are talking more about it trying to eliminate the problem.”
Berry reported that there were a total of 82 infractions of defiance/disrespect this year.
“Harassment had a big uptick this year and most of it came late in the second semester,” he said. “Most of it came in March, April and May with kids being nasty to other kids. One kid said to me, ‘we are just sick and tired of looking at each other.’”
Superintendent Mark Scott said the Illinois State Board of Education came down and did a nutritional review of the district’s cafeteria’s and found several infractions.
Some of those infractions included:
Vegetables at lunch didn’t meet minimum serving size – district was serving only half cup instead of three-fourths of a cup.
Food didn’t have child nutrition labels. Scott explained that the vendors the district buys from don’t care if the products they sell have the labels attached or not. They know they are selling to a school, but they don’t check if the label is there.
Lunch menus were not adequate. Grains were not whole grain but were enriched. All bread has to be whole grain and labeled as such. Recipes were not made available for Tuesday and Thursday meals. Has to offer full cup of fruit for breakfast and not just half cup. Toast was not whole grain.
Noodles were from Canada. Because the lunch program is funded through the Federal Government, all food items have to come from the United States.
A salt shaker was seen to be in the line of site of students.