After a long, cold day with no school for the students, the members of the District 158 Board of Education sat down to discuss important matters within the district. It was going to be a long session.

The BOE REG meeting took place on the night of Feb. 19.

Marlowe Middle School students Ryan Sroka and Michael King kicked off the meeting by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance for everyone in attendance.

Next, a representative of the HEA presented the Teacher of the Month Award to three teachers for their devotion to teaching, and outstanding efforts in creating a safe, friendly learning environment for their students.

Dr. Burkey then brought the meeting into the session’s most important topic: school boundary revision.

Leggee Elementary School has had slight increases in its student enrollment over the last few years, and has finally reached its limit. Decision Incite, a company which specializes in demographic projections and boundary changes, was called upon by the BOE to assist in changing the boundaries of the school district.

“We should aim to take some of the excess students from Leggee and move them to one of the other elementary schools,” said Dr. Burkey “There are plenty of class rooms to fill in Martin, so space should not be an issue.”

But setting boundaries for D158 is not as easy as some may think it is. Many mathematical calculations, along with other demographic factors, play into the decisions of boundary changes within school districts.

“There is no crystal ball that we can look into in order to make these boundary changes,” said Dr. Burkey.

Along with this the BOE also discussed how transportation of students would be affected by the changing of the district’s boundaries. The Board aims to keep travel times as close as possible to what they are now for all students.

To wrap up the meeting, Mr. Drzal called for the discussion of items which had previously been removed from the Consent Agenda for the meeting.

The BOE’s next meeting will take place on March 5.