ROCHELLE — At its monthly meeting Monday, the Rochelle Township High School Board of Education unanimously approved a $311,307 bid from Law Excavating for an upcoming detention pond reconstruction project.

The Law Excavating bid was the lowest received for the work and complies with FEMA floodway mandates. The bid was reviewed and approved by the project's engineer, Fehr Graham.

The detention pond is on the northeast portion of RTHS's property. The pond was originally designed to hold water for drainage. After a wetland project years ago, the pond has become "overgrown and unmanageable" and has seen issues with beaver dams and flooding. The pond is near a native stream.

Current drainage will be extended and the work will help with flooding that occurs on sports fields. The work will also include beautification and making it easier to maintain by mowing to prevent future flooding and runoff. The work is planned for the drier late-summer months.

At its meeting in May, the board rejected bids for the project due to a change in scope of the work. The low bid at that time was $331,798. The district originally expected the new bid process to yield higher numbers than the last time, but the low bid actually came out around $20,000 less than last time.

Co-op

The board unanimously approved a two-year boys and girls tennis cooperative pilot program with Oregon High School. OHS athletes will now compete on RTHS's tennis teams. The program will not increase costs, and the RTHS tennis teams will remain competing in their current conference and the smallest division of the IHSA state competition.

OHS currently has no boys or girls tennis program of its own and does not participate in any cooperatives, RTHS District Superintendent Jason Harper said. Harper said Oregon athletes will travel to RTHS to participate in practices and matches. The Oregon School District will be "pitching in" with travel costs and will handle eligibility for its athletes, Harper said.

Harper said in recent years, some RTHS sports programs have been "losing out" on being able to field full varsity and junior varsity teams. 

"Through our conversations, we've been adamant that we're willing to try this to see what happens in this situation," Harper said. "We've been clear that at this point we're not looking for any more cooperatives or things of that nature. This one happens to work right now. This is a two-year trial.”

The tennis teams will be known as the RTHS tennis teams and will not carry any of OHS's branding.

EOY

The board approved its end-of-year actions including its auditor, legal counsel and bank depositories remaining the same for the next year.

The board also approved its fiscal year 2025 meeting dates. It will continue to meet on the third Monday of each month at 5:30 p.m. in the district boardroom at RTHS.

July

The board will not meet in July as it has in years past due to the district calendar it approved last year. The next meeting will be Monday, Aug. 19 at 5:30 p.m. On Monday, the board unanimously gave approval to Harper or his designee to conduct regular district business until Aug. 19, including paying bills and hiring.