$2 million in bonds
PHS moves forward on the sale of bonds
PRINCETON — The Princeton High School Board is moving forward with some improvement projects for next year.
At this week’s meeting, the board voted to begin the process to sell $2,050,000 in school fire prevention and safety bonds. As approved at last month’s board meeting, the proposed projects include getting new bleachers for the football field/track, roof replacement work on the Prouty and south gymnasiums, tuck pointing for the entire building, repair work to the greenhouse, and repair to the fire escape at the auditorium. The goal is to get those projects completed next summer.
The board heard Wednesday evening from John Vezzetti of Bernardi Securities who will work with the board in the handling of the bond process. The board agreed to set a public hearing on the bonds for 5:45 p.m. Nov. 19, prior to the board’s next regular meeting. The public hearing is non-binding, and no action will be taken at the hearing. Once final interest rate proposals are received, the board is expected to take action on the sale of the bonds at its Dec. 19 meeting.
As far as the sale of the bonds, Vezzetti said he would market the bonds in Bureau, LaSalle and Lee counties and hopefully keep the bonds as close as possible.
The school board expects the receipt of the bond money will come after the first of the year.
Superintendent Kirk Haring said he did not expect the new bonds to greatly affect the district’s tax levy. In fact, the levy could decrease by 3 to 6 cents, since the district’s earlier general obligation bonds are being retired.
In other business, Principal Andy Berlinski announced PHS has been selected to participate in the National Assessment of Educational Program (NAEP), which is administered by the National Center for Education Statistics with the U.S. Department of Education.
NAEP is the largest nationally representative assessment of students across the country, Berlinski said. The results of NAEP are released as The Nation’s Report Card, which provides information about student achievement to educators, parents, policymakers and the public.
The NAEP testing will be given Feb. 28 to 66 PHS seniors in the areas of math and reading. Selection of the 66 PHS students for the program will be done randomly through the NAEP/ Department of Education Department.
In other testing news, Berlinski said the school will spend their half-day at school on Nov. 16 administering the Explore test to freshmen, the PLAN test to sophomores, and a practice ACT to all juniors. The eighth-grade students from the feeder schools will also be taking the Explore test. PHS seniors will have the day off.
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