On Thursday, October 20 District 158’s Board of Education conducted a regularly scheduled meeting. The meeting was headed by president Donald Drzal.

A group of cheerful students from Leggee Elementary School recited the pledge of allegiance and the meeting came to a start.

During the meeting, three speech team members from Huntley High School were awarded for their achievements outside the classroom.

Seniors Shamika Patil, Palak Patel and graduate Lexie Ziokowski were recognized for placing in the top 3 at the National Speech and Debate Association. Tom George presented the students to the board saying that “they have done a fantastic job representing Huntley High School.”

One of the bigger issues decided at the meeting was the Ombudsman Alternative Education Program. The program would allow students who are at risk of academic failure to still continue their education through an Alternative Learning Opportunities Program (ALOP).

The board has decided to accept the program and it is slated to start January 2017 and continue through the 2018-19 school year.

The program will be be run by Ombudsman staff but supervised by District 158, acting as an off site solution. Students will follow a similar curriculum to Huntley High School’s blended class model, allowing students to be flexible with their time while still having a teacher-led instruction.

The program plans to strengthen students social and emotional development, and prepare them with post-high school options. The program mandates that once a week a student completes an one hour post-secondary activity: job shadowing, volunteering, and project-based career exploration.

“The ALOP will help improve the graduation rate district-wide, decrease the dropout rate and increase overall academic achievement for each student referred to the Ombudsman ALOP.” Ombudsman’s vice-president of business development Lisa Chitty said.

For the 2017 school year District 158 plans for the program to cost approximately $390,000.