ABOVE: DEA President Alan Rivers with union officers Tony Montgomery, Alissa Wright, and Karen Talbott
Wednesday (Oct 25th) evening’s Danville District 118 Board meeting began with board approval of the new four year contract with the Danville Education Association, after recent DEA approval. Positive feedback from both sides continued, with DEA president Alan Rivers once again stating that the evolution into making it a four-year deal just happened along the way.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: Initially, we walked in to bargain a one year contract. And, things happened; and we’ve come to a four year agreement.
Danville District 118 Board President Dr. Randal Ashton (next to Superintendent Dr. Alicia Geddis) gives his take on the positivity of the DEA negotiations.
Meanwhile, 118 Special Education Director Molly Bailey asked for and received approval for an eight week deal to bring the organization Love Your Classroom, out of Crystal Lake, Illinois; into four classrooms at Mark Denman Elementary School. Bailey says, they became familiar with Love Your Classroom at a conference in Springfield, and she explained what the district is looking for.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: Coming out of COVID, lots of students were home for a long time. And so social skills and different things; being in stressful situations, stimulating environments, just wasn’t something that was happening during that time. They were mostly home. So, we’re working with behaviors in classrooms; and don’t always have the support staff to do that.
(2nd picture) District 118 Director of Special Education Molly Bailey and Athletic Director Mark Bacys speak with the District 118 Board.
Also on Wednesday’s agenda was a regular update on concussion policy. District 118 Athletic Director Mark Bacys pointed out that Danville High School has been without an athletic trainer for about four years. And although they are in the process of recruiting one, Bacys says certain procedures have been used to simply do the best they can.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: In football, the visiting team’s trainer is always kind enough to work both sidelines. And if you pay attention during the game, they’re running back and forth all over the place. In basketball, we put it out on this “go for ellis” site; and anybody in the area that doesn’t have anything that night that wants to work picks up the game; they’re already certified trainers. And there’s some games where we don’t have coverage, and those are always the stressful ones.
Bacys says the simple fact is that not too many youngsters are going into athletic training right now. And as a result those who are, and complete a certified program, have a wide variety of choices on where to work.
