The Nashville Grade School Board of Education met last night.  The Board agreed to allow for the sale of .09 acres land by the Middle School parking lot to Tom Watts, who owns the land behind it.  He wants to expand his property to put up fencing for his dogs.  There must be a posting for a few weeks now to see if there are any other bids, before the sale can be made.  They also approved Lawn Services Unlimited, Incorporated to take care of the grass with same rates as last year.  The 2014-2015 Athletic Handbooks were approved.   At that time the Board also thanked Athletic Director Jason Finke for his work in putting on the SIJHSAA Volleyball State Tournament this year.  He said it did raise a couple of thousands of dollars and is a good fundraiser.  The 2014-2015 School Calendar was approved.  It did have a change that August 12^th will be an Open House and there will be an early dismissal for the Homecoming Parade in early October of 11:30 AM.  Keith Heimann was reelected to be on the Kaskaskia Special Education District Governing Board.  The 2014-2015 Student Handbook was also approved.  The athletic fee was included in the Student Handbook, as it has previously only been in the Athletic Handbook.  The Board also approved the Washington County Relay for Life to use the school grounds on June 27^th and 28^th for the annual event, which is later than usual.  2^nd grade teacher Mary Kania is retiring, so there will be a reshuffling of teachers to fill this spot, as Superintendent Mike Brink said they opened the position to in-house teachers first.  The proposal has 1^st grade teacher Pam Neuhaus going to 2^nd grade, kindergarten teacher Stacy Bartling going to 1^st grade and 5^th grade teacher Susan Howard taking the kindergarten opening.  To fill the 5^th grade opening, Kathy Barczewski would teach a couple of Language Arts classes and still do Title I.  Emily Kellerman would then teach 2 Social Studies classes and the Right to Intervention.  This would not affect any budgeting for the school.  Linda Klingenberg would work in the classrooms on the technical integration and not on research, so they would hire a para-professional to do that work.  None of this was approved last night, it is what is planned though for later approval.  Later in the meeting, the Board accepted the resignation of Physical Education teacher Mike Kottmeyer, and so this position will be filled later.  Kottmeyer stated personal reasons for leaving, but his position had been reduced to half-time at the last meeting.  Digital conversion has begun as QNS is putting the infrastructure in the school building and should be done by next weekend at the latest.  They had teacher training with webinars from Pearson, the book dealer.  It was very basic training at this time though.  Brink says there will be more intensive training during the summer and he is working with teachers and staff on scheduling this.  He wants to roll out the computers for each student at the Open House in August for the Middle School.  Brink also talked about the issue of Hoyleton Grade School consolidating with NGS.  This is only discussion at this point and a study will begin soon, but there are several rooms in the school that are storage areas, and he wants to get rid of the excess equipment that is no good or not useful.  This can make room for 5 new classrooms in the future, if needed for the consolidation.  Some items can be resold, but some are not.  Also, the school will try to sell off some of the desktop computers they will no longer need, as well as the Chromebook computers.  He said Nashville High School might be interested in them, as we have reported from recent meetings, that they are now looking at the 1 to 1 conversion.  The Follet book company might buy some of the old textbooks, but not all of them.  Principal Chuck Fairbanks gave his report and said there is a request for a tree to be planted in memory of Christina Kania, who was the daughter of Jeanie Kania, who works at the school.  Also, he sent out a survey of a couple of dates for the Commerce Day, but only got 12 replies and that is not enough support from the local businesses to have the event, so they will not have it again this year.  Trivia Night is this coming Monday, the Athletic Awards Night is Thursday and Friday is not only Grandparents Day, but it is also the dance.   Brink also has a letter for the parents, explaining what is going on with the discussion with Hoyleton Grade School.  The Board looked it over and approved it.  Brink explained the financial position of the school.  They are currently running exactly 3 months behind on reimbursements on special education and transportation at this time, so the state owes the school $186,853 for those and early education.  He expects that to come in before the end of the fiscal year or just after it.  There is another $110,000 in general aid that the state has cut out of the formula that the school was expecting.  He went on to talk about the new legislation being discussed on a new funding formula.  They are talking about putting all these categoricals into one lump payment, other than the earlier education grant.  Because of the way the pension is set up in Chicago, they will come out well, but others will not.  He said their pay per people amount will be positive up north.  He just hopes that Nashville comes out breaking even.  Brink hopes to have more information and figures at the May Board meeting.   On expenses, he said the school year is 83 percent over and they have spent just over 84 percent, so he feels they are in good shape overall.