School Board Meeting 7-14-11

I thought I would provide a summary of tonight's meeting.
The first matter of business was to appoint a new board member to replace Ramona who resigned from the board last month. April Christensen was the only applicant. She was asked several questions by the board. I think she responded very well and will be a very good board member and I welcome her on the board. She was appointed tonight, but won't be officially sworn in until the next board meeting in August. She will finish Ramona's term which will expire in May of 2013.
The current board officers were re-elected to their same offices. Bart Cook President, Casey Park Vice President, and John Monson Secretary. Bart and I were sworn into new four year terms. The Superintendent Advisory Committee Representative Volunteers were changed. I am now on the budget committee, John is on the strategic planning committee, Casey is on the technology committee, and April will be on the curriculum committee. The board meetings will continue to be on the second Thursday of the month, but will now be held in the high school auditorium every month.
There was talk of running the board meetings a little different. The process comes from ISBA. I think the public comment period will be at the same time it has been, but in most cases the comments that people might want to make during the board discussion on an issue will have to wait until that comment period to have things run more orderly. I am not sure if it was decided to have anyone who wishes to make comment to sign in ahead of the public comment period. Doing this, the board would have a better idea of how much time to give each person, so meetings wouldn't go too late, and to try and control repeated comments. I don't want to limit comments too much, but I do agree this process needs improvement, from what we have done in the past.
Brett and Shannon Hill's letter's of resignation from the school district were read. I wish them luck in their new jobs, and they will be missed. Marsha Jones was re-hired as the school music teacher.
There was a presentation given by Charlotte Reid about starting a virtual charter school. There was a lot of discussion about this. Charlotte is running a virtual charter school in Bonneville, so she has a lot of experience with this. She said she thinks as many as twenty kids from Firth might participate in Bonneville's program. It would be a k-8 program. There was a lot of interest from the board, but with school starting in just over a month, there was a lot of concern about being able to get it all figured out that quick. We have to be careful and not get into something that costs us more than it might return. Firth would have to attract at least twenty five students from outside the district to make it profitable. It was recommended by Mr. Tubbs to spend some time studying this. In the end no motion was made. I think it will get looked at closely and if it is determined it can be all worked out and profitable to the district it will start for the next school year.
The new zone boundaries were discussed to comply with the law to balance the zones based on the 2010 Census. There was some changes, but I wont go into them here. They have to finish up on some of it. I think at some point they will get posted on the district web site like they currently are.
April Christensen presented a proposal from the cemetery board. They want to buy some land by the Firth cemetery to expand. The board has a plan to go look at the site to better understand how much property they would like to buy. It will be decided further at the next board meeting.
There was a few questions asked and answered during the public comment period relating mostly to the discussion that took place during the meeting.
One big positive news, we received our share of the money from the state budget surplus that was just announced. Firth got $175,000. This money will really help out our deficit budget for this year, and help us get back to the level of contingency fund we are supposed to maintain. With more cuts coming next school year, and a reduction in Medicaid reimbursements, and who knows what else. I think we need to be very careful spending this money.
That is pretty much all that was talked about. If anyone has questions, email my school address and I will try and respond. If anyone has an opinion of Firth starting a virtual charter school, let me know what you think of this idea also.