ROCHELLE — At its monthly meeting Monday, the Rochelle Township High School Board of Education approved multiple end-of-year actions as the new fiscal year approaches.
End-of-year actions included the approval of a food management bid with Arbor Management for the 2025-2026 school year that saw price changes of 10 cents to 75 cents on targeted items, which offsets increases in food cost by two percent, direct cost by one percent, labor cost by three percent and fee increases of 2.8 percent.
The board also approved the use of health life safety funds to go towards parking lot improvements at Chana Education Center in Chana. The major work will take place this summer.
The board also approved a tennis cooperative agreement with Oregon High School that renewed a two-year contract for RTHS and OHS boys and girls tennis teams to co-op.
The board unanimously approved a compensation plan for non-certified staff for fiscal year 2026. It also approved a district auditor, district legal counsel and bank depositories for 2026, with no changes seen from last year.
The board will continue to meet on the third Monday of each month at 5:30 p.m. in the boardroom in the district office at RTHS. The board will not meet next month and authorized Superintendent Jason Harper to continue operations during the summer including paying bills and hiring before the board meets again on Aug. 18.
Personnel
The board unanimously approved personnel changes including the employment of Betsie Swartz (head of drama, 2025-2026 school year), Alison Vrana (assistant principal, 2025-2026 school year) and Brett Zick (assistant principal, 2025-2026 school year) and the resignation of Elise Maliszewski (varsity softball assistant coach).
Summer school
RTHS Principal Chris Lewis made his monthly report during the meeting and said RTHS has 319 students enrolled in summer school, which is running from June 2-July 10. Dual credit courses to earn college credit are among the summer school offerings for students looking to catch up or get ahead.
Budget
The board held a public hearing for and unanimously approved an amended budget for fiscal year 2025. District Business Manager Kevin Dale walked the board through numbers for each fund. The district's amended budget will be at a $139,144 deficit overall. The budget is around $20 million. The budget was amended due to renovation costs to RTHS's library media center and grant funding coming in.
The board also informed the public that it currently has its draft fiscal year 2026 budget on display at the district office. The budget for the upcoming fiscal year will be up for approval by the board in September.
