AMBOY – Although the Thursday, Feb. 15 Amboy Community Unit School District #272 Board meeting was shorter than normal, there were plenty of keynote conversions.

Amboy Junior High special education teacher Katie Henkel presented to the board about a request from many of the junior high teachers to use the summer theater fund for a play they’re putting on called Law & Order Nursery Rhymes.

The play tentatively scheduled for April 12-14 is something new to the district and has peaked interest of 40 student-performers.

“It should be a lot of fun. It’s something new that we don’t do,” Amboy Superintendent Joshua Nichols said. “The teachers wanted to run with it and there is a large number of kids who are involved and excited.”

In his superintendent report, Nichols spoke about the property once holding the Amboy Junior High as the project is ready to turnover to the City of Amboy.

“At the old Junior High property, the construction company, Fuller, has put up a fence,” Nichols said. “With that process complete, the property is going to be given to the city because it bought the property from us for $1.

“The splash pad the city is going to create there will be an exciting thing. It’s a great space for that area of town. It’s a great opportunity for the city. It wasn’t something we were going to use. We still have the football field and the buses over there, but we consolidated all of it to one side.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for that property.”

Also in the report, Nichols discussed the new track which is scheduled to start immediately after the school year ends.

“Willett, Hoffman & Associates is going to redo our track . They were here doing all of the topographical surveying work,” Nichols said. “They’re taking up the track because it has a lot of cracks. It’s not in good shape. We hoped to do it last summer, but it didn’t work out. They’ll pull up the track, take it down to the base, check out the base, redo the base, put down new asphalt, and put down a new top.

“It’s going to be great. We can’t use Lane 1 right now because it’s in such bad shape. We’ve had to reduce the amount of home meets. The track is 20 years old, so we got good life out of it. I’m excited for there to be a new surface for our athletes to run on and use.

“It’s not just students. A lot of community members use it after hours and on weekends. It’s also used for physical education classes. It’ll be nice to have a track in full operational status for us to use.”

Every year teachers who are set to retire are discussed and mentioned to the Illinois Retired Teachers Association.

This year, Kelly Foster, a junior high social studies teacher, is planning to retire at the end of the school year.

“Kelly is a great teacher. She’s been with us for a long time,” Nichols said. “On a personal note, I’m starting to run out of people I taught with as they’re retiring. I started as a teacher and then made the transition to superintendent. I taught with Kelly. I’ll miss having her around.”

There was also a board policy review featuring Section 1: School District Organization and adding a naming policy.