By JEFF LAMPE
For The Weekly Post
ELMWOOD – Next year’s track athletes will compete on a new surface at Elmwood High School.
The Elmwood School Board at Monday’s monthly meeting voted to approve a $103,000 bid from Track Surfaces Company of Elburn to resurface the track. A portion of the payment will be from a $50,000 School Facility Project Grant.
Work is expected to be completed by July 31. The last resurfacing was done eight years ago, according to Board Member Grant Strom.
Strom said Track Surfaces was the lowest of three bids received. Also approved was an additional $3,500 to resurface the approach for the pole vault and to rebuild the box.
Strom said the lack of a working pole-vault area is one reason Elmwood is unable to host high school track regionals.
In other business from a recent building committee meeting, Strom also reported that work will be done over spring break to touch up some paint in the Elementary School gym. he said a sinking drain in the school parking lot will be addressed this summer when staff will also paint new lines in the lot.
Superintendent Joel Schmieg reported that the district has agreed to an annual $5,443 subscription to implement ZeroEyes technology into its existing camera system for three years. Ten cameras will be equipped with special lenses that can detect weapons and operate 24 hours per day. When weapons are detected, a message is sent to the ZeroEyes control center, where former law-enforcement or military personnel and artificial intelligence verify threats before calling school administrators or local police.
Schmieg said the Elmwood Fire Department has again agreed to staff football and cross country events for 2026-27 for $100 per event. And Schmieg said the technology committee is still working on a draft of Elmwood’s AI policy.
Board President Jessica Reyling said negotiations are ongoing with the teacher’s union, with another meeting set for early March.
In personnel, the board approved hiring Hayley Davis as junior-high math teacher for 2026-27, Jennifer Williams as JH girls track coach and Tom Almasi as a custodian. The board also accepted resignations from Emma Vallas as JH girls basketball coach and, after the 2025-26 school year, from Ashley Miller, JH English teacher; Kyle Anderson, high school math teacher, girls cross country coach and boys track assistant; and Lauren Sheet, Bright Futures teacher.
