Huntley School District 158 held its monthly Board of Education meeting this past Thursday, Jan. 20.

The meeting began with Doug Renkosik congratulating Huntley for their finalist nominations for two awards in 2021: the Solar Builder Award, and the Cleanie Award. Jesse Prier, Marketing Director at Forefront Power, also congratulated the BOE on the Solar Builder Award.

Solar Builder, who has been a trusted source for the solar news in North America since 2011, held its annual Project of the Year Awards as a celebration of the solar industry that showcases the hard work, dedication, and leadership of solar project developers and owners.

Since being put in all three campuses throughout the district, the solar panels have helped save up to $270,000 a year.

“Out of over 70 submissions, Solar Builder selected the Huntley CSD 158 Solar Portfolio as one of the five finalists in the commercial and industrial (C&I) Ground-Mound category,” Prier said.

Then they moved onto the Cleanie Award, where the district was a finalist in the Project of the Year Judges Choice category, along with 10 other finalists, which included multinational corporations, such as Amazon, Bloomberg, and Wells Fargo, and a school district in California. The district should be proud of taking initiative and converting to solar power.

After the two awards had been announced, four instructors from the elementary schools came to speak about the immense progress that they have made regarding fine arts.

Because of the pandemic, the programs at each elementary school lost many students during the 2020-2021 school year. But now, the number of students involved has increased and the program is continuing to grow.

“Conley began in 2019 with 132 total students, and now has 128 students. Leggee began in 2019 with 85 students and now has 66 students. At Martin, there were 204 students in 2019, and now have 132 students,” band and orchestra instructor at Conley Elementary School, Nick Lowe said.

The instructors are grateful that they have had the opportunity to continue finding ways to serve the community, even through the pandemic.

Nevertheless, the district is continuing to sustainably develop to meet the growing needs of everyone in the community.