Vandalia School Board Continues Hearing About Curriculum Updates

The Vandalia School Board continued to hear about curriculum updates during its monthly meeting held last Thursday. After hearing updates from the district’s Curriculum Coordinator and Special Education Coordinator last month, this month the board heard updates concerning the High School as well as athletics and tie-ins with curriculum. Current Athletic Director and incoming VCHS Principal for the 2026-2027 school year, Jason Clay, and VCHS Assistant Principal Michael Mabry discussed some upcoming changes with the high school including a couple items that revolve around the ACT. It was explained that college testing is shifting back to the ACT after being SAT focused for the last several years. Mabry talked about how they will be working with the ACT and College Readiness Standards as they are different from the Illinois Learning Standards and despite the ACT now not being required for college entrance, scores on the ACT benefits the students when it comes to scholarships, placements and college entrance among other things. To tie in with the ACT, there has been discussion of the Freshman Goals Class and shifting to one day of ACT prep. Clay and Mabry said they are continuing to meet with the various departments to hear ideas and input from the faculty. The board then heard from Mark Rinehart who will be taking over as Athletic Director next year when Clay moves into the VCHS Principal position. Rinehart explained that they are looking into tying in Athletics to teach more “essential life skills outside of the x’s and o’s.” He explained that they met with coaches at the beginning of the year and are looking at how to get to the point of teaching those skills and are looking at how to reinforce their teaching tools with non-educator coaches. Rinehart laid out a three-part process including surveying business and community members, getting feedback from coaches and former veteran coaches and getting student-athlete feedback beginning with the seniors as they work to put things in motion.