Macon Reporter

Mt Zion Community Unit School District 3 Board met Aug. 12.

Here are the minutes provided by the board:

President Jeffrey Sams called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m

Board members present were: Jeffrey Sams, Nathan Brock, Michelle Shumaker, Regan Deering, Kyle Janvrin and Kristi Niles.

Administration present consisted of: Dr. Travis R. Roundcount, Superintendent of Schools; Brian Rhoades, Associate Superintendent; Justin Johnson, Mt Zion High School Principal, Julie Marquardt, Mt. Zion Jr. High School Principal; Randy Thacker, Mt. Zion Intermediate School Principal; Gary Gruen, Mt Zion Grade Principal; Heather Ethell, Mt Zion McGaughey Principal; Billy Rockey, Curriculum and Technology Director; and Renea Smith, Special Education Administrator.

The Pledge of Allegiance was cited by those present and led by Jeffrey Sams.

Regan Deering introduced a motion to approve the Regular and Executive Meeting minutes of July 15, 2024. Seconded: Kyle Janvrin. Roll Call: Nathan Brock, Michelle Shumaker, Regan Deering, Kyle Janvrin, Kent Newton, Kristi Niles, and Jeffrey Sams yea. Motion carried: 7-0.

The following people spoke regarding naming Diamond 1

Sabrina Schwartz Adam Skundberg Darron Gentzyel

Sam Flesch Jeff Morgan Guy Brown

Jerry Cox Jean Jury Kirk Sark

Eric Law Kevin Koslopsky

Dr Roundcount spoke regarding the new school year starting soon and invited any Board member that would like to walk the schools with him to let him know.

Kent Newton presented a motion to approve keeping Executive Session Minutes prior to August 2024 closed. Seconded: Michelle Shumaker. Roll Call: Regan Deering, Kyle Janvrin, Kent Newton, Kristi Niles, Jeffrey Sams, Nathan Brock, and Michelle Shumaker, yea. Motion carried 7-0.

Michelle Shumaker presented a motion to authorize the destruction of the verbatim recordings from the closed session meetings of the Mt Zion Board of Education prior to February 2023. Seconded: Kent Newton. Roll Call: Kyle Janvrin, Kristi Niles, Jeffrey Sams, Nathan Brock, Michelle Shumaker, and Regan Deering, yea. Kent Newton, No. Motion carried 6-1.

Kyle Janvrin introduced a motion to place the Tentative FY 2025 Budget on display and schedule a public hearing on the budget for September 17th, 2024. Seconded: Michelle Shumaker. Roll Call: Kristi Niles, Jeffrey Sams, Nathan Brock, Michelle Shumaker, Regan Deering, Kyle Janvrin, and Kent Newton, yea. Motion carried 7-0.

Kent Newton introduced a motion to go into Executive Session at 7:15 p.m. for the purpose of discussing the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of an employee or office of the public body. Seconded: Michelle Shumaker. Roll Call: Jeffrey Sams, Nathan Brock, Michelle Shumaker, Regan Deering, Kyle Janvrin, Kent Newton, and Kristi Niles, yea. Motion carried 7-0.

Regan Deering presented a motion to return the meeting to order at 8:37 p.m. Seconded: Michelle Shumaker. Roll Call: Nathan Brock, Michelle Shumaker, Regan Deering, Kyle Janvrin, Kent Newton, Kristi Niles, and Jeffrey Sams, yea. Motion carried 7-0.

Michelle Shumaker presented a motion to table the vote on voting for Diamond One tonight. It isn’t because I am debating whether Coach Blakey is deserving of this. I have the utmost respect for him. We have never named a school facility after someone, so this is new territory for us. We have had a few names brought to us, and I strongly feel that before we start naming facilities, we need to have a better policy in place and a procedure to implement, perhaps a sub-naming committee. I feel we need to start where we mean to go in order to be fair and equitable to all our deserving, amazing staff, and develop policy & procedure before moving forward at this time. Seconded: Nathan Brock. Jeff Sams said in the discussion; I think it's fair that the board does not feel like handling was done correctly and that we need to back up and we need to allow the entire board to have input and investigate, not just how we're going to handle this procedure, but how we're going to handle procedures coming down the road. Roll Call: Michelle Shumaker, Kent Newton, Kristi Niles, and Nathan Brock, yea. Regan Deering, Kyle Janvrin, and Jeffrey Sams, no. Motion carried 4-3.

Michelle Shumaker presented a motion to approve the following personnel-related items as outlined below, pending a drug test and background check for new employees. Seconded: Kristi Niles. Roll Call: Regan Deering, Kent Newton, Kristi Niles, Nathan Brock, and Michelle Shumaker, Yea. Kyle Janvrin, and Jeffrey Sams, no. Motion carried 5-2

1. Michelle Shumaker read a sympathy card thank you.

2. Regan Deering spoke of IASB upcoming topics.

3. Superintendent response to a question from a board member about where are we going from here regarding naming facilities: Superintendent recommends administrative committee to further research this topic. He will reach out to some board members. He knows some board members have been interested in meeting and having those discussions and will schedule based on availability. He stated the athletic director needs to be on this if we are talking about naming a facility after a coach. There’s probably some other administration, staff, other people in the community, whatever that could be on as well. I think we’re looking at naming facilities which is a big issue, and it could be in the future for a lot of people in the district. I don’t think we’re looking at this for just one particular person. I think we’re trying to develop a policy that applies across the district and hopefully, for several future requests, that could come in for other people. We need to have more discussion. There are a lot of school districts out there that have done this and have developed their own policies already, and we can request and review those. We can see how they implement them and what works for them or what doesn’t, and we’ll make sure what we implement is going to work for us. Nathan Brock: I think that’ll be important as we look at this moving forward because we’re not just talking about coaches. We’ve got a lot of great teachers in our community. We’ve had great administrators over the years. We’ve had, God rest his soul, some great board members. I think it’s important as we think about that policy for all aspects, not just athletics, but academics, administration and all those things, so thinking about who we include to get the right parameters and we’re consistent. Once it starts, there’s going to be multiple because we’ve got a lot of great people in this community, and I don’t want to leave out anyone. I think it’s important that we honor the great legacy of our coaches, and we do it in the right way. I think it’s important that we also honor the legacy of our amazing teachers, our amazing administrators. We need this policies lockstep so no one can question what we’ve done. Superintendent: Again, this group discussing it is not going to be a decision-making group. This is really just the research group, to just gather, discuss, and provide some more information and then bring that back to the board. The board is ultimately going to have the decision on this, whenever that time comes. It’s hard to know how long it’s going to take to get a policy and procedure that everybody’s comfortable with that we feel works for our school district. Kristi Niles: And to be fair we will have to vote on changing board policy. Superintendent: This is about the policies for naming facilities and we currently have a policy, but that could be replaced. We could also have an administrative procedure that outlines parts of the process.

Jeffrey Sams announced Tuesday, September 17, 2024, 6:30 p. m. as the next regular meeting of the Board of Education, to be held at the Mt. Zion C.U.S.D. #3 District Office, 1595 W. Main St., Mt. Zion, IL 62549

Michelle Shumaker introduced a motion to adjourn the Board of Education Meeting at 8:50 p.m. Seconded: Kent Newton. Roll Call: Kyle Janvrin, Kent Newton, Kristi Niles, Jeffrey Sams, Nathan Brock, Michelle Shumaker, and Regan Deering, yea. Motion carried 7-0.

https://www.mtzschools.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=4751&dataid=6730&FileName=September%20Packet%20WEBSITE.pdf