Board to look at dangerous crossing

BY ANNA HERKAMP

DANVILLE May 13, 2008 06:19 am

— Danville District 118 will request state help to designate a busy street crossing as a hazardous area —and get reimbursed for transporting students safely across it.
School board members will hear the district’s recommendation to apply for transportation reimbursement to bus Meade Park Elementary School students who live across Main Street to school.
Currently, students who live in the area north of the busy road cross before and after school with the help of a crossing guard.
The Illinois Department of Transportation studied the intersection earlier this spring and determined that too many motorists were exceeding the speed limit at Oregon and Main streets.
IDOT recommended increasing the speed limit to 40 miles per hour, but the district objected, according the Assistant Superintendent Mark Denman, because it was so near the school.
IDOT conceded to let the speed limit remain at 35 miles per hour, but the district still decided to go through with the application, because of the department’s findings on how many drivers were speeding through the area.
Denman and Superintendent Nanette Mellen estimates some 40 students live in the area north of Main Street.
Discipline policies
The board also will review some changes to the Ownership in Education manual, the handbook that outlines district disciplinary policies.
One proposed change involves raising the number of suspension days for second and repeated incidents with fighting. Currently, elementary students can be suspended for up to three days for a second fighting offense and up to five for repeat offenses.
The changes would make a second offense punishable by suspension up to five days and repeated offenses punishable by up to 10 days.
Mellen and Denman explained that elementary principals need more leeway with discipline for older children in elementary school.
The current elementary school fighting guidelines currently apply to all children from kindergarten to fifth grade.
Older boys in fifth grade, however, get into more serious altercations than younger kids, they explained.
“Every case is so different. That’s why flexibility is so important,” Mellen said.
The manual changes also include making bus suspension, meaning no transportation on school buses, up to 10 days. The manual currently doesn’t specify an amount of time.
Mellen added the district also will survey families about revising dress codes in the district.
Principal changes
Also at the meeting, Mellen will recommend two assistant principal placements for next school year, at North Ridge Middle School and East Park Elementary School.
Mellen said the district is narrowing the pool of candidates for the new Danville High School prin-cipal.
Current DHS Principal Marla Bauerle-Hill retires this spring.
A decision should be reached soon, she said.
The district also is collecting applications for Northeast Elementary Magnet School Principal.
Currently, DeMarko Wright, one of the district’s administrative interns, is filling in the vacancy left by Kathy Houpt, who is now at Danville High School working as the director of secondary educa-tion.
She’s helping to prepare the high school for restructuring changes taking place in the fall.
Wright will be principal at Garfield Elementary School next year.
COMING UP
The Danville District 118 school board will meet at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Jackson Building, 516 N. Jackson St.