The newly elected school board members took a first glance at the serious, impending challenges that face District 428 at Monday’s meeting.

District 428 said goodbye to school board members Donald Gladden, Sue Hildebrandt, vice president Charles Lundgren and president Don Robinson, while welcoming newly elected president Tom Teresinski, secretary Holly Wallace, members Tia Robinson and James Mitchell. Existing school board member Suzanne Lambrecht was named vice president in hopes that she can serve as a mentor to the newly elected board members, Teresinski said.

Teresinski immediately took the floor by setting out a basic game plan the board and the entire district must consider now that a third referendum has failed to alleviate area students from overcrowding.

“There are some early things we need to look at. There’s not a lot of time, and we have to do it quickly,” Teresinski said.

Because another referendum attempt could not be posed to voters until November 2004, and considering that if the referendum were to pass, actual renovations and additions wouldn’t be visible until 2006, Teresinski said the school district immediately should consider redistricting for various schools.

One option includes the potential move of fifth-graders back to the elementary level to clear the junior high school of its overcrowding. Another factor is that elementary schools may be unable to handle the imbalance of student enrollment at each grade level.

The school board will conduct a workshop Monday to consider how to approach these redistricting needs.

Teresinski also mentioned that with the possibility of a $1.5 million budget, the school board would have to consider the most appropriate methods of spending money and look at ways to attract dollars from different sources.

But the first real challenge presented to the school board was the recommended motion for the board to review the 2003-’04 school year calendar. One aspect that spawned a citizen debate was instituting the first day of the next school year on August 19. This move was proposed to provide high school students with the luxury of taking finals before Christmas Break rather than coming back in January and taking them soon after.

“We realize that not everyone will be happy with this proposed calendar,” said Superintendent Brian Ali in response to nearly half-a-dozen responses from citizens criticizing various decisions made within the calendar.

Lambrecht suggested in her final report that she’d like to look at creating another strategic plan similar to the one instituted in 1997. The plan in 1997 was a comprehensive five-year plan that looked at tackling the pressing needs within the district.

Ali said despite the first strategic plan ending this past year, some issues still remain and should be carried over if the school board were to create a new plan in the months to come.