AMBOY – Yvonne Vicks and Andrew Full began the Amboy School Board meeting on Thursday, April 18 with a slide show presentation of Amboy Junior High School testing results from STAR Assessments, Learning Renewal Interim Assessments (LRIA), and Response to Intervention (RTI).

Vicks, a AJHS social studies teacher, interventionist, and curriculum director, and Full, the AJHS principal, said the administration and teachers are using the reading and math tests to try to target what areas students are struggling in and what they can do to help the process.

Vicks and fifth grade teacher Betsy Jones showed the board some inconsistencies in the LRIA test, including the writing assessment with examples of a strong debate assertive paragraph being outscored by a longer essay talking discussing cheese pizza and only writing it because they had to.

At the end of the presentation, it was made clear this was the last year Amboy schools were going to use LRIA as FastBridge Learning will be implemented for the 2024-25 school year.

Amboy Superintendent Joshua Nichols addressed the tennis court which will be transformed into a pickle ball court with a little bit of paint, removed weeds, resealed cracks and reset posts labored by the City of Amboy.

The pickle ball court is scheduled to be temporary as discussions have taken place and have gained ground for the area to be converted into a parking lot.

During the principal reports, Amboy Central School Principal Jessica Meusel gave a thank you to Vicks and Jones for the testing research as well as discussing the school’s spring concert and the Family Literary Night, which was a success with 10 stations of fun learning with family.

Full discussed the movie trip to the Apollo Theater in Princeton and an eighth-grade fieldtrip to Springfield on April 5. He reported both events went smooth.

Amboy High School Principal Janet Crownhart praised the new Section 2 FFA Officer Team as Amboy’s Natalie Pratt was named president, Brysen Full vice president, and Grace Althaus treasurer.

During his superintendent report, Nichols spoke at the 2024-25 fee schedule not raising from the past seven years as the 2023-24 fees totaled $68,369.

The only fees possibly being raised, the vote will take place at the May meeting, are sports fees as they will increase $10. They haven’t been increased in the last eight years.

John’s Service & Sales has been hired to repair or replace the water heaters as only two of the three are working and all are outdated.