The Nashville High School Board of Education met last night.  Superintendent Wendy Davis told the Board of a few resignations of extra curriculum groups.  Melissa Toedte and Ashley Engele, Cheerleading coaches are leaving after the season, as is Stingers coach Holly Weathers.  The Board accepted these resignations.  They also approved of maternity leave for Agriculture teacher Julie Bond-Ledford from the time of birth to the end of the school year.  The school will be hosting the Scholar Bowl on March 10th.  Davis also reported that the maintenance crew has been working to keep the heating units going, as they are in need of repair.  She is still waiting final word on a $50,000 maintenance grant that the school will use to repair bleachers at the football field, do work in the science classrooms, replace some floor tiles and other projects.  These have been approved previously, so as soon as they receive the funds, the school can begin on the projects.  The school also received the Back to Books Grant for the 2nd year in a row, something unusual.  This $5,000 grant will be used to update materials in the resource section with an emphasis in career section.  The Nashville Invitational Tournament report was presented and the gate receipts were the highest in the past 3 years, at just over $14,000.  Expenses were just over $7,000, so the school received nearly $1,800 and each other participating team received $760.  Davis then told the Board that they received Full Recognition Status on the 3-Year Compliance visit, which is the highest level as nothing was out of compliance.  Discussion about the old band uniforms included the donation to a school that is interested and has need.  Principal Brian Pasero sent out an email to schools and he has received some interest.  They will go through any letters of interest and find the best way to get rid of them.  Pasero presented the results from the recent Parent – Teacher Conferences.  This is the 2nd year that they have had them in February and they sent out 433 letters and had 224 conferences scheduled.  10 were no shows, but there were only 146 conferences scheduled last year, so it was a success.  Input from teachers was good, but some mentioned that they did not get to meet with some parents that they really wanted to.  Also, the intercom system announcing the end of each 15-minute session was not available, due to a basketball game in the Assembly Hall, which would be an interruption to play.  It would have been helpful to keep everyone on schedule.  Davis advised the Board that March is a very busy month.  On Thursday, March 13th, the English Department will have their Community Night, where students, faculty, staff and those from the community are invited to open mic night to recite their favorite or original poetry.  The following Thursday will be the Fine Arts and NCHS Vocational Showcase.  There was plenty of discussion on the prospect of having Chromebook computers for each student.  This is still in the early planning stages, but 3-year and 2-year implementation plans were discussed.  Davis said there is R.E.A.P. Grant money available to begin the process and other grants can be applied for, as well as other funding options.  At this stage, a committee will be formed to address all the issues and find the best implementation of the plan.  The snow days have been piling up, pun intended, and they school is over by 2 days.  Discussions on days to make up need to include the Nashville Grade School, as they share buses, so it was decided that there would not be enough time to take Casimir Pulaski Day off on March 3rd, as the Grade School Board meeting isn’t until this Thursday for them to approve anything.  But they agreed to take 2 days away from Spring Break, meaning it would run April 18th through April 21st, so the Wednesday and Thursday would be in school days.  The idea is that waiting to make them up at the end of the school year means that seniors in a mixed class with sophomores and – or juniors would miss material.  This plan was approved by the Board.  Athletic Director Neil Hamon brought up the realization that wall space is not available in the hallway by the Assembly Hall for the large pictures of sports teams that finish 1st through 4th in State Championships.  The current pictures are 30 inches by 40 inches.  The proposal would be to have the original photographer, Humphrey Photography, to print up smaller, 20 inches by 30 inches, versions.  This would be at an expense of nearly $500 for each of the 12 that would be needed.  State Champions pictures would remain at the current size.  The smaller pictures could be stacked 2 high on the walls.  The trophies would go into another case.  Hamon suggested to make money to cover this, the school would auction off the pictures to be replaced.  Also, he would like to clear up the banners in the Assembly Hall, by having the Elite 8 banners condensed to 1 banner per sport with the years listed, instead of a banner for each year.  Again, these banners could be auctioned off.  The Board approved of Hamon moving forward on this.  Last month, Nashville Mayor Raymond Kolweier asked the Board for their support of the Washington County Enterprise Zone application and they voted to approve that support last night.  A couple of organizations requested usage of school facilities and the Board approved these.  One is for the Optimist Youth Football Program to use the football field March 4th through the 28th, as long as proof of insurance was established.  Also, the Washington County Pony League requested usage of the junior varsity baseball and softball fields from March through the end of July.  Again, this is with proof of insurance.  It was noted though, that this is only for the JV fields, and the Varsity fields are not to be used under any circumstances.  The Board then approved Illinois Energy Consortium for another 3-year fixed rate contract.  This group works with over 400 school districts to get them the best energy rate.  Davis talked about a couple of grants the school should apply for and the Board approved both of them.  One is the 2nd round of the Maintenance Grant, which is a $50,000 matching grant.  Davis said they have the money to match and projects would include fixing roofing that is leaking in various places, replacing guttering and putting in 8 new HVAC units on the roof.  The other grant is a School Security Grant for just under $10,100.  This is another competitive grant and money from this grant would go towards projects of updating the radio system, with a complete new set up, as well as an additional 4 cameras for the interior of the school.  There are funds available to pay a couple of Interfund Loans, so the Board approved taking money from the Tort Fund and IMRF Fund to be placed back in the Working Cash Fund.  Davis said they will probably need to borrow from the Working Cash Fund at a later date, as they wait for tax money to come in.  Finally, the Board approved a student to be able to play softball and compete in track at the same time this year.