I am late writing this I was out of town. I am having a hard time deciding if I should write a separate blog for the committee meetings or just combine them into one. I will probably do some of both.
The committee met before the board meeting and went over a power point presentation that Casey had worked on about the four day week. I was surprised how positive the four day schedule has worked out so far. Two of my main concerns going into the four day were student achievement and financial savings. We will not know ISAT test scores until around June so we had to go by what the teachers and administrators thought. On this point what we found out was in most areas the teachers we talked to thought if anything students were doing better. This has also improved because of the change from trimesters to semesters. The students have more time in class to learn. The teachers are getting through more material than they had before. We will know more when the test scores come back later this year.
On the financial savings so far it looks like we are saving more than we had anticipated. In spite of some health issues with some teachers, we have still had less absences than before. It looks like our student attendance is up a little too. Using the current savings projected through the rest of the year it looks like we will save around $50,000. Most of the savings comes from $20,000 less in transportation costs and $21,000 less in Paraprofessional salaries.
In our committee discussions we had very few negative comments. Based on the committee findings, it was recommended to the board to support the four day schedule for a least another year. Later in the board meeting the board voted to stay on this schedule for another year and reevaluate it again about this time next year when we have more complete information.
There was some talk about how to improve the calendar for the year. There has been some confusion when we have Monday holidays we go on Fridays. The calendar committee is going to work on different options and present the information to the Excellence in Education Committee on April 5th, our next meeting to review. We will look at options of not going on all Fridays even if there is a Monday holiday, but doing this we will have to add days somewhere.
There was a couple concerns that came out of our committee discussions that don't really relate to the four day plan. It was pointed out that because of lack of funding last year we didn't have summer school. Some teachers talked about how this used to help some kids get caught up in areas they may have struggled in. Some students came into the year behind and have struggled. This is one area I hope when we can come up with the funds we can restore. Also because of less funding we have less aids in the classes which makes it harder to help the students catch up and creates more work for the teachers.
Now I will get into the board meeting.
We approved putting out bids for new high school bleachers. The bleachers are very unsafe and we think there is money in what is called the student occupied fund to pay for them. Each year we are required to put some money into a fund that can be used to improve student safety. It can only be used for things like this. We are not allowed to use it to plug budget holes like I just talked about. After one month we will close the bids and review what to do. It takes something like 14 to 18 weeks to get them made and installed. They would use our school colors, and we could put FHS or cougar paws or something like that into the design and not cost us anymore. We should know more about this next month.
We approved the safety busing plan that we submit each year to receive funding to bus kids to school that normally would be required to walk. Because of all the canals and railroad tracks and the highway it is not safe for them to walk so we provide busing.
Coach Drake was recognized for being coach of the year in football and for the success they had in football and wrestling.
We then had a presentation about starting a Virtual Academy. We had the same thing presented to us last year around June. Some board members expressed interest in it but we would have had to decide almost immediately it we were going to do it or not. We had concerns about this idea, so now they are bringing it back to us earlier this year. After some board discussion it was decided to turn this over to the Excellence In Education Committee to review. We will need to have a recommendation back to the board by our May board meeting. That pretty much was what happened in the board meeting. We then went into executive session and talked about the teacher evaluations.
Now I will write about some thoughts I have about the Virtual Academy. First of all I admit I need to learn a lot more about this program. I know there is support from some patrons in the community and even on the committee. One major problem as I understand it now is the funding. If we decided to start this school which I should say is basically a home school program grades K-8 with help using online classes and some use of school facilities. Because of the delay in how schools get state funding we would have to fund the start up costs. Depending on how many students were enrolled the costs would very. It would probably cost at least $50,000 out of our budget. With the projected deficit spending of our current budget at $232,000 that is a lot more in the whole that I don't feel very good about. We still may have to lay off at least one more teacher before next year, it all depends what the state does this year. If we lay off a teacher and have to pay for one for this program, that might not be very well accepted either. I have other concerns but for now until I understand it better maybe I have said enough.
We are going to have our committee meeting on April 5th. We will go over the school calendar. I would also like to talk about ways to get the word out about positive things going on in the district. This was a board goal and was also brought up as something we needed to do by a committee member. We then will have some discussion about the Virtual Academy. I don't think we will have time to go to far into this subject that night. We sometime later would probably have the supporters of this idea come talk to our committee and answer our questions and concerns.
If anyone has questions or concerns about this or anything else let me know. Thank you, Brian
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