August 11th School Board Meeting

I am a little late writing about this meeting. I left town for a few days.
The meeting was very poorly attended, maybe a dozen people. I guess things have died down enough, after the levy, there isn't much interest in the meetings anymore. I wish they had left it at the middle school. I think the auditorium is too big, and so far they can't get the microphones to work right.
Well here is my summary of the meeting. We had to wait about 20 minutes for John to get home from work to start because Casey was gone, and April wasn't officially a board member at the start of the meeting. When we started April Christensen was sworn in as an official member of the board. It is good to have a full board again. I think April will do a good job.
One new teacher was hired to teach social studies, I think in the high school and some in the middle school. He is a Firth graduate named Trevor Clayson. He will take over some classes that Darvel Jolley was teaching, so he can take over the math classes that Brett Hill had been teaching. There is probably a little more shifting around to fill the gaps from the changes in staff that were made.
Liz Killpack presented some free training to the board, which in turn I think explained some things to the patrons that were there also. She talked about the meaning of being a Trustee and who we represent, the students, the school district, and our zone. Trustee's are given a lot more information about issues than the patrons are given, some of which needs to be kept confidential. Because of this the Trustee's might vote different than the patrons would like. She also talked about how the Trustee's have no individual authority, we have to have a majority to change anything. Trustee's govern over the district policies, set goals, and oversee the budget. She gave a good presentation, and I thank her for presenting the information to us.
Sid talked about the superintendents meeting he attended. He told us about the state's plan to go to a student achievement testing patterned after what they do in Colorado. They are calling it the Idaho Growth Model. Like a lot of things in our state education lately, we didn't receive much information about how this will all work, but it should be an improvement of how things have been done the last few years.
Sid also talked about the merit pay, or the pay for performance plan for the teachers. I think this is another work in progress, as to how this will be done. It is not based as much on individual teacher performance as I thought it was going to be. The first step, as I understand it, is each section of student performance, however that is determind will have to meet a high standard. Like the test scores in certain areas will have to meet state standards to even be considerd for merit pay. Not until after this is met will we as a district have any input into who should get this extra pay. I believe the teachers that will qualify for this will not get it until the next school year. It will be interesting to see how this plan will work.
He also talked about a consolidation study the state was offering to do in each county that has multiple districts. The state would give an organization that would do the study10,000 for each school district that wanted to paticipate in the study. Blackfoot and Snake River are planing on participating. I don't know about Shelley and Aberdeen. I might be wrong, but I don't believe there is much interest in consolidating in Firth. As was pointed out several times during the levy discussion, our district currently has a lot lower taxes than any other district, and very little building debt. I think no matter how consolidation would be done our taxes in Firth would go up considerably. Unless we were to have interest in consolidation, I think doing the study could work against us. The state says now they will not force consolidation on us, but if by doing this study they determine some money can be saved, they then might force us into consolidation. I have been involved with dairy research projects that have been done, with the idea by doing the research we will get some answers to questions we need. Then after the research is done we might get the opposite answer we wanted, that then can be used against us. So to me unless there is real interest in consolidation, we should stay away from participating in it. I understood the state has already looked at administration costs and detemind not much could be saved there.
The school board goals were discused, and how we would try and make sure they would be achieved. The main goals are.
1. Ensure that the staff and faculty are treated honestly and fairly.
2. Ensure that the physical facilities ar clean and well maintained.
3. Maintain open communicaton with patrons, faculty and staff, and administration.
4. Financial responsibility.
5. Review and update the district policy.
6. Ensure that students are offered educational opportunities and extra-curricular activities.
We talked about our indivdual ideas under these catigories. In the past we have done a walk through of each school in January to see the condition of each building, what maintenence has been done and what might need to be done. With limited funds priorities have to be determind. We plan on reviewing these issues more often and updating our priorities.
I plan on writing this blog after the board meetings and at other times I think it is nessesary, to inform patrons of what is going on in our board meetings from my perspective, and to aswer questions that may come to me. If at some point I feel like I am wasting my time writing this, I may stop doing it.
Some other ideas were discussed. We are going to go over them at our next meeting.
A patron had a question about how to find out if he had a concern about something, how soon he could find out if the concern was taken care of, and how the procedure works. I thought it was a good question. I do believe patrons should get answers. It was discussed how this should work.
This question brought up something to me. Last meeting I asked a question that was asked of me. How they were going to handle the stress of a longer school day on the little kids. They had ideas but no real plan at our last meeting, so I asked what their plan was now. The school got a grant to provide a nutrition break in the afternoon. They are also planning on having the more active class subjects in the afternoon, to keep them moving.
They are planning on having an item on the agenda to discuss old business. So when questions like this get brought up in a meeting that have to be looked into, the answers can be reported at the next meeting. This also should help with communication.
I decided it is easier to write this right after the meeting if possible. I can't remember the details as well as I would like. But this is plenty long. If anyone has questions let me know. Thank you, Brian