In the middle of fair week, and the first big NFL game on TV, very few came to the board meeting. I think I would have chosen football too, over our meeting if I didn't have to be there.
Well here goes my summary of the meeting. The audit report for last school year was presented to us. I can not remember the gentleman's name, and don't see it in the report, but he is from an accounting firm that has done our audit and several other schools audits for many years. Last years final budget balance was a loss of $13,653. The money we received from the state after the fiscal year ended in June of about $176,000 was included in this report. We had budgeted for a loss of $200,000 so with these numbers added together our budget was very close to the final outcome. Even with this money added in, our revenue from the previous year went from $4,273,060 to $4,133,392 or $139,668 less money. The Auditor pointed out our revenue in 2001 was $5,000,000, so you can see how much less the district has to work with. I know some of this is less students, so less income, but this is a big loss of funding. Our net expense per student was $6,362. It was asked how we compared to other districts. He said a district about the same size as ours that he audited spent $7650 per student and another district that is a third larger spent $6242. He pointed out that it usually costs more for small districts to educate kids. So he really commended us on how we have kept our costs so low. He thought overall we were in sound financial shape, and maintained the funding reserves we should, about 75 days worth of expenses.
Mr. Gee asked for the approval of a cooperative agreement with Aberdeen school district to have two girls play soccer for their district, which was latter approved. He also talked about doing a survey and study to see if there is interest in starting soccer teams in Firth. I expressed concern if there were enough kids to maintain a football, and volleyball team if a soccer team was started, and what it might do to the quality of those teams. The costs of such a program will be looked into also.
The board goals were discussed. Besides the goals I mentioned last month we all had some ideas for additional goals.
1. Ensure that the physical facilities are clean and well maintained.
Activity: Develop and prioritize list of projects ( example: bleachers in the high school gym)
Activity: Develop strategies / time lines to address each project.
2. Maintain open communication with patrons, staff, and administration.
Activity: ensure that school board agendas, meeting minutes etc. are posted in a timely manner on the district website.
Activity: Mr. Esplin to blog about school district matters as an individual.
Activity: Mrs. Christensen to write / contact the members of her zone at least once every three months.
New idea at this meeting. Put a quarterly news letter on the web site, and maybe if not to costly send a paper letter out.
Another new idea. Have each advisory committee give a report three times a school year.
3. Financial responsibility
Activity: Monitor the finances of the district each month.
Activity: Ensure financial reports are posted on the school district website as required by law.
4. Review and update district policy.
Activity: Establish a monthly calendar of policies to review and update.
Activity: Review policies monthly and revise as needed.
5. Ensure that students are offered educational opportunities and extra-curricular activities.
Activity: Attend district sponsored activities.
Activity: Visit district schools.
April expressed concern about the online duel credit classes. Mr. Gee explained how it works and what is available through the IDLA or Idaho Digital Learning Academy. There currently are a few students doing this, I think in English. It was discussed that parents need to be informed better about this program.
There was some discussion on how we can work on building better relations with the teachers and community.
During the February board meeting we will discuss the four day week and how it is going. We will also before this meeting put out a survey on the web site to get input from the community on what patrons think of the four day schedule. It will probably still be to early to determine the cost savings in much detail. We are going to review the goals one more time and vote on them next month.
We had a long discussion on how we should revise the procedures for board meetings. When we had such long and sometimes contentious meetings, it was thought we needed to bring some kind of order to how the meetings were run. There has been talk of having each patron that wants to speak at a meeting sign up before or sometime during the meeting to be able to speak. I have been against this idea, for at least most of the meetings. I think as the meeting progresses patrons may have something they would like to say, and I don't want them do not be able to speak, just because they didn't sign a paper. And in most cases I don't think the talking time should be too limited. This will be reviewed again next month, but I think the final consensus was to have those who want to speak come up to the front and state their name in the microphone. That way Mr. Tubbs can write down who speaks, so there is a record. There will be new language written up on this encouraging being respectful and trying not to talk too long.
There was some talk about maybe moving spud harvest back a week, because of the late growing year. Only one patron had said anything about this, and because of other conflicts this would cause the schedule was left as is.
We talked about the annual school board convention held this year in northern Idaho. The cost of going there is high. We discussed the idea of having some training brought to us. I would not be able to go whatever the decision was. Maybe one or two members will go, but at this point I don't think so.
During the public comment their was a comment that it would be very helpful for people to follow the discussion if some of the documents presented could be put up on an overhead. I think that was a good suggestion and will be done in the future.
The Firth cemetery board representative presented a request to buy some property in the far north eastern corner of the elementary playground. They are running out of burial plots. After a short discussion, it was determined that this should be presented as an agenda item at our next board meeting. So if you have an opinion that you would like to express about this come to the next meeting. One concern that came up is if Firth were to start a soccer team sometime, the east side of the elementary school is probably the only area big enough to have a soccer field, and that it gets used for that now in the summer by the AYSO kids. If the ground was sold, it would not be big enough to able to be used that way.
One last item that I brought up was if there was any way a private transportation company could be contracted to transport small groups of kids to activities, and there by saving some costs, for the district and parents. Mr. Tubbs said he would look into it, but mentioned the safest way to transport was on a bus.
Each time I start writing these I don't think it will be very long, but again I was wrong. I hope this is helpful to those who like to know what happens. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thank you, Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment