The March 12, 2025 Board of Education meeting video is now available.
Meeting Video Includes:
Open Session Meeting
Visitors to be Heard
Superintendent & Committee Reports
March 2025 Highlights:
Approval of 2025-2026 Board of Education Regular Meeting Dates (subject to change upon addition of new board members)
Approval of Adjusted 2025-2026 School Calendar
Bell Schedule Information, Considerations, and Recommendation
Administrator Reports:
Mrs. Kim Maher:
The Illinois Association of School Boards Three Rivers Division held their recognition and networking meeting at Manhattan Junior High School on March 4th. Members of our new building team from STR and Pepper Construction were present and provided a tour to local school boards and superintendents. Members of our school board were present and recognized.
The Cardiac Emergency Response Team at each building ran a drill during the Teacher Institute Day on February 14th. Thanks to our nurses for leading our teams through a scenario to practice the procedure we have in place. Following the drills and discussion, there is a recommendation to increase the number of AEDs in the district as well as purchase some accessories and supplies to maximize our preparedness at all four buildings.
Our Cyber Safety for Parents discussion presented and facilitated by SRO Officer Rob Bernardy took place on Monday, March 10th. A video recording of the presentation is available on our district website and students in grades 4-8 will participate in age-appropriate learning about safety in the digital world from our SROs this spring.
Mrs. Cheryl Donovan:
All of our ACCESS (which is completed by our English Language/Multilingual students) testing took place in February. Our students worked hard and we look forward to reviewing their data. Thank you to all that helped prepare, administer and troubleshoot!
Math and ELA Illinois Assessments of Readiness (IAR) will be taken in grades three through eight and will take place over the next two weeks. ISA (Science) testing will take place later in April. A huge thank you to all. The administration and proctoring side of the platform has changed and with that has come new learning.
22 teachers and 494 students transitioned to piloting enVisions Mathematics resource. In the coming weeks staff, parents and students will continue to have an opportunity to provide feedback. Both math resources that are being piloted are on display. Parents and community members can schedule a time to come in by contacting Cheryl Donovan. They will remain on display through the end of our selection process.
During our February 14th institute day, our specials (art, music, physical education, stem/stream/digital media) met to vertically articulate. The teams identified areas of opportunity and were thankful for the time to articulate.
OTUS: Our data warehousing vendor hosted a wonderful free professional learning session this past Friday that I attended with an instructional specialist. They are interested in hosting one (again, free) for our district and surrounding districts. We are in discussions to host this in the summer and then possibly again in the fall!
AI: At the end of April I, along with our LMS and instructional specialist team, will attend a free session to learn more about AI and how to embrace what is here and what lies ahead. Frankfort 157C secured the presenter and invited the feeders to join. LWW is providing the space for our group along with other feeders. We are blessed to have such a wonderful network among the LW area.
Mrs. Julie Hantson:
Tooley, Dunlap. and Pierce's classroom had a food drive for the local Manhattan Food Pantry. We collected over 2,100 donations for the food pantry. The drive ended with a full school assembly where staff volunteered to get pied in the face by students who made donations. We will be touring the pantry and dropping off the donations on March 12th. We are helping community members while raising awareness of community resources.
Our Student Services Community Night is April 23rd from 5:30-7:30pm at Wilson Creek.
Carrie Rohe:
Wilson Creek hosted Family Fun Night-Get Connected on February 26th! This event was a huge turnout for families across the district as there were over 1000 attendees, with 400 being kids participating in STEM activities! The raffles raised over $1000 for Wilson Creek! Wilson Creek families also supported our S & T pizza set-up fundraiser which raised over $1000 and Wilson Creek teachers held an additional fundraiser that raised just under $1000. We are grateful for everyone's support with our school!
Teachers participated in professional development during our Institute Day on February 14th! Teachers met with their grade level teams and the instructional specialist to review UFLI curriculum implementation. Staff also participated in Wellness activities designed by Julie Brady, PT and Mary Ellen Tolbert, OT. There were presentations from Curriculum Director Cheryl Donovon regarding MTSS and from Kim Maher regarding Crisis Go. The day ended with new Superintendent Dr. Aherne coming by for a building tour and meet & greet with everyone!
During the last month teachers are continuing to have collaborative discussions with each other during collaboration lab time. Between both grade levels,we have had great conversations about UFLI and some appropriate content that can be left for a sub to complete now that sicknesses are in full swing.
We have also been talking about ways we can improve fluency within our 1st grade classrooms. We have been exploring resources to build on our students reading skills.
In Kindergarten, we discussed some interventions that teachers are using with their students in hopes that it may help another teacher out who is trying to help that “tricky” student. Teachers have been having great success with these collaborative discussions and it is something we will continue to do during our time together.
The Early Childhood and Preschool for All Classrooms began a new unity of study this month, Pets! Our students have been curious about the different types of pets they see, what pets need, how pets make us feel, and the kinds of jobs that involve working with pets. This unit is always a favorite with our young learners! As we study pets, we will learn concepts and skills in the areas of literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, and the arts. We’ll also develop thinking skills as we observe, investigate, ask questions, solve problems, make predictions, and test our ideas. This study is part of our Creative Curriculum, a comprehensive, research-based curriculum that features hands-on, project-based investigations as a pathway to learning. The Creative Curriculum includes the most up-to-date early childhood development research and offers embedded support and guidance to effectively bring a content-rich, developmentally appropriate curriculum to life by means of four week in-depth studies.
Our preschool screenings for the remainder of this school are filling fast! We have only a couple of appointments left for our March screening and we have already booked several appointments for our May screening, as well. As we work to fill our rosters for the 2025-2026 school year, we have already exceeded interest and enrollment at this time of year compared to previous years. Our screenings are one component that help to fulfill our Child Find obligations. The goal of the Child Find Project is to educate the public about the importance of early intervention and early childhood special education services for eligible children as early as possible in their development.
Elise Kirk:
Pack Pride Day- We celebrated Pack Pride Day honoring our Persevering Penguins, Grateful Grizzlies, and Honest Otters. Students brought board games from home and played with their pack- including students from other classes and grades. It was a great team bonding experience. We ended the day with a pride assembly that included games and students getting to pie staff members in the face!
Music Club- The second session of music club for 2nd grade starts this month. Students will be working with Mrs. Bloom after school on Mondays.
IAR- Our 3rd grade teachers have been working hard to prepare students for IAR testing later this month. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to ensuring students are prepared. Best of luck to our students that will take state assessments at the end of the month.
Read Across America Week- Students and staff participated in Read Across America Week by dressing up on theme days, participating in Drop Everything And Read, as well as a surprise Mystery Reader joining each classroom.
Read Bowl- As a building we set a goal of reading 100,00 minutes in our Readbowl event in February. We far surpassed this goal, reading a total of 409,682 minutes!! This fun, school-wide event promoted literacy across the grade levels.
Mr. Ryan McWilliams:
Many thanks to Mrs. Ciurej & Mrs. Ramsey for introducing & promoting Character Challenges. The challenges align with our SEL curriculum and promote students intentionally showing good character
Hopefully e-Learning days are behind us, but I wanted to give a shout out to Mrs. Barr & Mrs. Ramsey for their support of staff during e-learning. Even if things go smoothly, these 2 just being a resource of support is much appreciated
Our MIS ACCESS students are having a wonderful year. Such a good group of kids. Our 5th graders will be missed when they head over to MJHS next season. Thank you to Ms. Pica, Ms. Joseph, Ms. Maine, Mrs. Dennison, Mrs. Ciurej, Mrs. Schmidt, Nurse Jaime, & Mr. Stadter for taking care of these kiddos.
We are ready to take the IAR assessment...good luck MIS kids; our 3rd grade peeps; and MJHS.
Much appreciation to Mrs. Barr & Mrs. Donovan for facilitating the math pilot and to the teachers in the trenches making it happen at the classroom level. Pilot teachers include Mrs. Davern, Mrs. Dolezal, Mrs. Houk, and Mrs. Najewski
PLC time during the week continues to be very productive time for staff. Much discussion on what is in place, what is working, what needs enhancement takes place. Appreciate Mrs. Barr facilitating these conversations and ensuring follow up is initiated
Thank you Ms. Wesel & Mr. Anderson for joining me showing Dr. Aherne around MIS, followed by a little Q & A with staff. Very thankful that the relationship building process has started with our new leadership and the nice things staff had to say about their colleagues and the culture of our school & district. No better place than 114! Hopefully in the tour folks took note of all the cool artwork displayed by Mrs. Boersma.
It was Read Across America Spirit Week at Ole MIS March 3 - 7. It was also staff Rock Paper Scissors Challenge Week. Staff participated in a variety of activities to earn strings of beads Feb 24-28. At the end of the day on March 4, the staff member with the most beads was declared the winner. This year's Inaugural RPS Challenge winner will be declared at the March 14 IAR Pep Rally.
Speaking of Pep Rally, thank you once again to Mrs Abbott for choreographing this year's staff Boot Scootin’ Boogie dance for kids. We also did staff & kid scooter races.
Congrats to 5th grader MacKenzie Meli for qualifying for State with her club wrestling program.
Thank you Ms. Lamont for coordinating our 6 week check-ins with staff. These conversations are valuable to ensure we are doing our best to support kids as well as challenge them.
Mr. Vince Perillo:
5Essentials Survey: MJHS had students complete the 5Essentials Survey on Friday, March 7th during advisory. Any students that have not completed the survey yet will have an opportunity to take the 5Essentials before leaving on break. To help with parent completion of the survey, MJHS will be holding a competition between morning advisory classes to see which group can have the highest completion rate.
National Junior Honor Society: With the end of Trimester 2, candidate information packets were made available to all students. To be considered for NJHS, students must have a cumulative GPA of 3.80 over the last five trimesters. Those individuals who have that academic achievement that submit their candidate information packets are then scored on a matrix in four pillars: leadership, service, citizenship, and responsibility. Packets must be submitted by Friday, March 14th. The Induction Ceremony will take place on Thursday, April 17th.
Current members of NJHS completed their service project for the year. Students elected to provide help at HHH Ranch where they worked on building a large tent structure, helped feed the animals, and more! The week of March 10th - March 14th, NJHS is sponsoring a spirit week for all students and staff. NJHS Faculty Sponsors are Mrs. Sarah Johnston and Mr. Vince Russ.
IAR Testing Preparation: MJHS staff members passed out and went over the students previous year’s IAR scores during morning advisory to allow the students to reflect on their learning and testing and to set goals for the upcoming tests. Math and ELA teachers will be conferencing with the students to create action steps to help the students best prepare for IAR in April. Thank you to our Building Leadership Team consisting of Gina Burlison, Kylie Clark, Betsy Dobczyk, Sarah Johnston, Amy Goberville, Meghan Petschinsky, Jennifer Dunlap, and Joyce Watson for all of their work on this.
All content areas have begun academic preparation for the IAR test in their instruction by reviewing the concepts, skills, and standards the students have learned this year and will be tested on. Staff members are also working with students on areas such as how to navigate the testing system, testing strategies, and more.
IAR Testing is March 19-20 as well as March 24-26.
Reading Challenge: To promote interest in reading as well as stamina, MJHS started a Reading Challenge for students during school hours. Students have earned House Points by being caught reading (at appropriate times) in classes outside of ELA, such as morning advisory, math, science, and more. Thanks to Mrs. Meghan Petschinsky for her lead with this initiative.
Leprechaun Traps: On Monday, March 17th, Rooms 500, 502, and 503 will host their 16th Annual Leprechaun Traps for staff and other adults. The students always amaze the audience with their designs and presentations of their work!
Washington D.C. Trip: Fifty-four 8th-grade students are excited to travel to Washington DC March 13th - March 16th! We are appreciative of the following staff members making this possible: Mr. Carl Minuth - Program Leader; Mrs. Stacy Shinovich - Chaperone; Mrs. Maria Hora - Chaperone; Mr. Anthony Marotta - Chaperone. Deepest thanks are extended to Manhattan School District 114, including the parents and especially the school board, for allowing our school this tremendous opportunity!
Athletics: MJHS Bowling is in full swing over at Laraway Lanes. We have 63 bowlers this year between 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. Track and Field has begun practicing and Manhattan will be hosting Sectionals again this year, here at MJHS for the first time ever. Congratulations to our Manhattan Wrestling team on a great showing at Sectionals! They advanced to State on Friday, March 7th and Saturday, March 8th! Our 7th grade Girls’ Volleyball team fought hard in the second round of Regionals. 8th grade Girls’ Volleyball Regionals began on March 8th. Manhattan Athletic Summer Camp information will be coming out soon for students to sign up.
Music: All of the music groups, under the direction of Mrs. Pedziwater and Ms. Perkne participated in their Step-Up Concerts at Lincoln-Way West and received fantastic feedback. The 6th-Grade Concert Band and the Symphonic Band hosted their I.G.S.M.A. Pep Rally Wednesday, March 5th, to much applause from the audience.
IGSMA Competition: The Bands will host competition on Saturday, March 8th; Choir and Orchestra will also perform that day at Martino. Good luck to all our musicians!