Nathan McCarthy of Solar on Earth addressed the Kewanee School Board Monday on a proposal for the school district to participate in a planned solar project in Henry County. [Photo by Michael Berry]

Kewanee School District and Kewanee Park District officials have discussed cooperating on making improvements to the baseball and softball facilities at Northeast Park.

At Tuesday’s school board meeting, School Supt. Rebecca Baney said she expects that park district officials would “expect financial participation” from the school district in the project.

But the district is also making payments on several other bond issues, Baney said, and she doesn’t expect that it would be possible to make any financial commitments to the Northeast Park project until at least 2027.

School board President Jeff Johnson said participating with the park district on funding any project would reduce the cost to the school district, “but it’s still a lot of money.”

Baney didn’t offer any details on what improvements are being considered.

Also Tuesday:

— The board approved a deal with a company called Solar on Earth to participate in a solar project to be built along John B. Young Road near Galva. The project is to be built in two phases and should be completed by this fall, according to company representative Nathan McCarthy.

McCarthy told the board that the school district could save at least $10,000 a year on its electricity costs. Participating in the Solar on Earth program wouldn’t affect the school district’s use of solar panels on the roofs on Kewanee High School and Central School, McCarthy said.

He said the Bureau Valley School District is participating in a similar project planned near Princeton.

— The board authorized the possible pursuit of legal action against the district’s insurance company to recover at least some of the cost of repairing the solar panels on those two roofs. The panels were damaged in last July’s tornado.

— Joseph Dobbels told the board he has received approval from the city of Kewanee to proceed with his project of having high school students create horse-drawn “chariots” for tours of the trails in Francis Park.

Doddoe, who runs a sawmill near the park, said he has been authorized to remove dead trees from the timber in the park, which would be used in making the chariots.

His plan is to have students in the two high schools design and build the chariots.

— Baney reported that the state school superintendent’s budget proposal doesn’t call for any increase in the state’s evidence-based funding support of school districts. She said that was “a bit of disappointment,” as Kewanee’s state aid covers just 70.5 percent of the amount needed to bring it up to the state’s funding goal.

— Among personnel actions taken by the board were hiring Jordan Engwall as an elementary teacher, Josh Hicks as head Kewanee High softball coach and Blair Shaw as Central Junior High seventh grade girls basketball coach. Jenny Edwards will move from seventh grade coach to eighth grade coach at Central.