April 12th School Board Meeting

Before I get into the board meeting. I have a little update from my last post. Senator Bair emailed me the next day and wants to meet me somewhere for a visit. He said he would meet for lunch or come to my house whenever it was convenient for me. He gave me his cell number to call him. I haven't done this yet. I mentioned to Mr. Tubbs after our board meeting that he wanted to meet with me. Mr. Tubbs asked if he could join us if that's okay. Part of me would like to meet with him by myself, because I had no outside  information, for what I have emailed him. But maybe it would have more impact if he joined in. Maybe I wouldn't feel as comfortable telling him everything on my mind if he is there. I will have to decide.

Well here goes my summary of the board meeting, with some of our committee meeting discussion mixed in. It was held the week before.
Bart was not there. His son is very sick with pnemonia. I hope he feels better soon.
Lisa Phelps has resigned from teaching, I think from the second grade. She was a very good young teacher and will be missed. Mr. Tubbs has said her position will not be replaced. I don't know how they plan on moving teachers around to replace her. The second grade will need three teachers with the number of students that age.

We were presented a bid to replace our high school bleachers. The total bid is for $120,475. The money will come out of the student occupied fund. This fund can only be used for things like this. The school has to put a small amount of the total budget into this account every year. It currently has about $280,000 in it. We think it would be a good use of these funds, and we will still have a reserve to cover other things that might come up. The bid was accepted. It will take a long time to get them made and put in. They probably won't be installed until spud harvest time this fall. Mr. Tubbs thinks we can get a grant to pay for part of the cost, somewhere between $10,000 to $20,000. Once we accept the bid it's easier to get the grant. They will be very nice, and will meet all current safety requirements. We will have a few coloring options to choose from.

I then gave a report from the Excellence In Education Committee. We met last Thursday. I went over some of our discussion about the calendar for next year. It was recommended that we adopt the proposal that the calendar committee had come up with. Later the board had many questions and concerns with the calendar. The start date is August 13th. The plan was to have no school on Fridays even after Monday holidays. Have normal time off around holidays, and be done on the Friday before Memorial Day. There was a lot of concern starting that early, mostly because it can be very hot in the elementary building. Adapting to the required time for school on a four day schedule with no school on Fridays, requires some changes. In the committee it was brought up how there are a lot of athletic teams practicing the first of August, so those kids would be around. If they go to school after Memorial Day, it would be a challenge to have finals that week. It was later pointed out by Mr. Gee that it would be very hard for the seniors to have a senior sneak, if school went that late. I think educating kids after Memorial Day would be hard. I still think we should have stuck with the calendar presented or add two or three Fridays that fall after a holiday on Monday. It was pointed out that we could wait and turn in our calendar next month, so I made a motion to table it until next month. The calendar committee will come up with some more options to give to the school board before the next board meeting.

I also talked about our committee discussion about the Virtual Academy. I had asked Mr. Tubbs to present information about the funding problems with a Virtual Academy. He described how unit funding works. We have to have a unit to receive anymore funding. The size of a unit changes with the age of the kids. If the kids are kindergarten age it takes 40 kids to make a unit. I think from 1st to 8th it takes 23, and high school it takes 14 and a half. We were told there might be 12 kids wanting to attend the Virtual Academy, maybe more if they could recruit some from other schools. So bottom line this wouldn't likely bring in any money to cover the costs. Mr. Tubbs also talked about the challenges other schools have had with this program, and the changes that would have to be made with our policies and procedures. It would also be hard to hire a teacher for this program after laying off teachers from the regular classes. I recommended with all the unknowns and more expense to the school that we not go foreword with a Virtual Academy, and couldn't see the value in studying it further. There was more discussion but no more action.

I also talked about how we as a committee talked about ideas of how to get positive news out to the community. There are a lot of good things going on that people should hear about. Mr. Gee at the high school has been putting out a weekly email of the high school activities, and Mr. Mecham just put one out from the middle school, and Mr. Tubbs is working on an email from the elementary. This should help. I mentioned that the PTO spellathon had raised $4200, $1700 more than last year. It shows the community is willing to support our kids, and news like this needs to get to people. There is also ideas of getting more information in the newspapers. The PTO has really done a lot for the schools and should be thanked for their efforts.

In the committee meeting we talked some about the state of our funding. It's not good and sometime we are going to have to have a levy to bring us back to profitability. We have ideas of areas that we would like to have more funding for like summer school for example, but I think first of all we have to get our budget balanced. At our next committee meeting on May 17th at 7:00 I have asked Mr. Tubbs to give us all a lesson in school budgeting 101 you might call it. I want him to explain where all our funding comes from, what it is dedicated to, and what is truly discretional. I want him to go back to where we first started making cutbacks. I want a detailed list of all the cuts we made and the approximate savings from each item. Also to include the increased costs we may have passed on to the students and teachers. Including things like, no more summer school, no middle school football, less games and travel in some sports, no paid for field trips, less number of paid and lower paid coaches, no mid day kindergarten busing, less budget for textbooks and computers, the four day week, less teachers and paraprofessionals and less hours for them, and anything else he can think of. I would also like to have the amounts funding has dropped in each area from federal and state support. With all this information put together in a form easy to understand, I think we can then go foreword with a plan. We need to understand as close as possible where our money goes and how soon we will need to have a levy and for how much. I suggested that the whole board be invited to this meeting. From what I have read and talk about in my two recent posts. I don't believe the state will restore any degree of funding back to the schools, at least not anytime in the forcible future. We are on our own. We have to have a plan that we can make work for us. We can't let our schools fail. Whether we like it or not, the state is pushing some of the school support back to our local property taxes. I just wish they would admit this, and not keep giving the media the impression they have somehow made us whole, because they haven't. If you haven't read my two recent posts read them and you will understand what I am talking about better.

Back to the board meeting. We approved the BPA travel request to Chicago. They raised the money for their competition. One boy and two girls are going. We also approved the senior sneak. They are going to Lagoon and Lava Hot Springs on two consecutive days. They also raised the money or will pay the balance of what they need for this trip.

I also brought up the idea of cottage meetings. I don't think any board member has had one this year. It was asked during the committee meeting if we were going to have them. During the board meeting I asked for a show of hands who might come to one if we had them. Several hands went up. We all have had such poor attendance that I think we have all been discouraged to have them. April and I are planing on having ours together at my house. Hopefully that way we can get better attendance. Anyone can come to anybodies cottage meeting, you don't have to live in  the zone. I have talked to April and I think we will have it here on April 25th at 7:00. My wife has volunteered to make some refreshments. If there is a change I will post it, so check back before that date to make sure there aren't any changes. I am not sure what the other board members are going to do. They will have to decide and get the news out to the paper or however they choose. I plan on having ours posted in the Pioneer also. I believe April was going to send out some invitations to her zone.

Well that is pretty much it. I do have a request. I spend quite a bit of time writing this blog. As you can tell from the time below often late at night, when I have time, and it's quiet so I can think. I am not a very efficient writer. I would really like your feedback. Doing this I always wonder if anybody is reading it, or if there is a value to very many in what I write. I see that I have six followers listed. Thank you for your interest. I know there has to be some questions or comments from what I write. Please give me feedback or at least in some way acknowledged you read this and want me to continue. Thanks, Brian