The Irvington Grade School Board of Education met Monday night and Superintendent Dave Schulte says they have been receiving their General State Aid, getting 10 of 22 payments, but overall, that is only going to be 87 percent of what they should receive. He says they have also received 90 percent of their tax levy money. Their Financial Profile score is a 3.9 out of 4.0 and Schulte explains what that means. They do a fund balance to revenue ratio on how much they have and how much they have spent. There are formulas they run and calculate a score for it. Irvington Grade School has enough cash on hand to run the school for 168 days and they have tried to be cautious about what they spend these past few years and keep all that they can. Schulte also talked about the Catch Program at the school, which is where the students and staff begin the day by walking around the gym for about 10 minutes. He talks about the benefits of this, as it gives the students a chance to get up, get moving a little bit, visit with their friends and start the day off, before going to their first class. The teachers think this helps with students coming in and getting settled and they’ve gotten some of that morning talk out of the way. It’s also doing something physical. Like Okawville schools, Irvington will be in school on Casimir Pulaski Day on March 3rd, instead of taking it off. Therefore, they will not be putting in for an Act of God day this year, as they have used up all of their snow days plus one. At this point they still plan to get out of school on May 30th. Graduation may change as well, but that hasn’t been decided yet. The Board approved the purchase of McGraw Hill My Math products for kindergarten through 5th grades and GlenCoe Math products for 6th through 8th grades to help with Common Core math. They also accepted a letter of intent to negotiate for the teachers’ contracts, as they are in the last year of their contract. Candy bar sales begin next Monday for a couple of weeks and volleyball season began last night.