The Centralia High School Board of education will hold a special meeting on Thursday, July 31 to discuss and vote on whether to accept an invitation to leave the South Seven and join the Cahokia Conference. Members of the public will be welcome to attend the meeting and provide comment. On July 7, Centralia received an invitation to enter the conference in the 2026-27 school year. The special meeting is being called so that the school can reach a decision and give a response before the start of this school year, giving a full year’s advance notice if Centralia does switch conferences.
Board members will have to consider whether staying in the South Seven or joining the Cahokia Conference will be a better fit for Centralia in the future. Superintendent Chuck Lane said that projected school enrollment would be an important factor in the decision.
“One of the things we’re concerned with is that our enrollment’s been going down,” Lane said, “while at the same time enrollment in all of the schools in our conference has been going up. You want it to be as much of an even playing field as possible, so those are the things we have to look at. What do we look like five years from now in each conference? And I want to know what our coaches think, and the board and our other administrators, so we’re all looking at that now.”
The exact time of the special meeting will be set and announced within the next few days.
In the superintendent’s report, Lane said that the district has finally received the last of the ESSER III grant money previously withheld by the federal government. The $550,000 were approved to pay for the pole barn extension that contains a new fitness area. Lane also says Centralia High School has not been affected by recent federal pauses targeting funding for after school programs and other education programs because CHS was not receiving those funds to begin with.
The board accepted a letter of resignation from Sam Andrews as part-time cafeteria worker, and hired Kyle Quigley as Social Science teacher and Javon Williams Jr. as in-school supervisor.
