School Board Meeting December 10th, 2013

The board meeting started with the recognition of the football and volleyball teams. The football team ended up third at state. Coach Drake said that four players made all state, and several others were second team. The official honors weren't out yet. Coach Drake said he never had a harder working group of young men. 

The volleyball team finished the season as state champions. They had an amazing season. At state they only lost one set, the very first one. From there they dominated winning every set and match on their way to become state champions. Coach Reeves talked about how proud she is of the team, and what wonderful young ladies they are. She talked about how supportive the team has been to her, helping her deal with some serious health issues in her family. 

It was talked about how spoiled we are at Firth. Our teams constantly do very well, while many in our district struggle. It was mentioned that this was the first year in school history that North Fremont had made it to state in volleyball. Congratulations to the football and volleyball teams for a great year. 

We then approved our emergency school closer day, when the power was out. A day of school is considered six and half hours of class time. We are provided eleven hours of emergency  hours during a school year. It was also said our calendar has twenty two hours more built in. So we have twenty six and a half hours of emergency time left or something like four more days of school before we would have to go on an extra Friday to make up the time. 

We then had a discussion from the Strategic Planning Committee. They have spent a lot of time going over the needs of the district. With the new Idaho Core Standards we will have to update our math and science curriculum. We will also have to do a lot more testing on computers. We don't have near enough computers in either the high school or middle school for the students to do the research and testing that will be required. 

Our middle school bond pays off next June. The annual payments have been about $250,000. The committee is recommending to the board that we consider a two year supplemental levy for $230,000 each year. So taxes wouldn't go up. At the start of the school year we had about $800,000 in our contingency fund. Based on our current budget we will end up with around $600,000 or so. At our recent report from our district auditor, he recommended we maintain a three month budget reserve, just in case there is a problem getting the money from the state in a timely manner. I think our budget is around $4,500,000 a year, so $600,000 isn't even two full months worth. 

 

This is the breakdown from the Strategic Planning Committee. The top needs identified for the year 2014-2015. Math curriculum $69,626. Science curriculum $54,547. I think they said the math books are 9 years old. Under technology they recommend $18,000 for 30 desktop computers @ $600, and $26,000 for 200 tablets @ $130. The tablets would be kept in the classrooms to do research.  The students can't do testing on tablets. They recommend for the middle school, $18,000 for 30 desktops. More and more of the curriculum is moving to computers from textbooks. Mr. Gee said there are only 18 working computers in the high school computer lab. Most classes have around 25 students, so it will be hard to do the required testing. With 30 more computers for each building they can set up another lab, so the students can keep up with the new mandated testing requirements. With all the new technology we have in the district and the need to maintain the new tablets and computer labs, we will need to hire another IT person. The estimated annual cost of an IT person is $40,000. So for the school year 2014-2015 it adds up to $226,173.

For the school year 2015-2016 they recommend new english curriculum amounting to $69,626 and new social studies, history, and reading curriculum for $51,382. They were joking about how old our history books are. They also recommend $18,000 for 30 desktop computers for the elementary. Overall our curriculum is getting very old. With our budget cuts over the last few years we are behind on replacing the curriculum. The needed requirements for common core have also been slow coming out. The new requirements force us to update what we have been using. There isn't enough money in our contingency fund to cover these needed costs, and maintain our contingency fund anywhere close to the levels we need. 

The next most important recommendation for the 2015-2016 school year, is for us to upgrade and replace the heating system in the elementary. The building heat is mostly from a boiler that is original to the building. There has been a big concern about the reliability of such an old system and the cost to replace it. It also has been a concern for many parents as to how hot it can get in the building at the start of the school year. The recommendation is to replace the boiler with a HVAC system to provide efficient heating and air conditioning for the building. The new system should also save us a lot on our heating bills. The cost of the new system is estimated to be $70,000. This is also a cost that would be hard to cover without some additional funds. So the total for the 2015-2016 year is $230,000. 

At our next board meeting we will have a discussion about wether we should go forward with the committee's recommendations. It was also requested that they provide the board with other district needs that they have talked about. If the board decides to go forward with a levy, the district will submit the paper work to have an election in March. I personally think we should go forward with this. I hope with our needs specifically identified and the fact that taxes won't go up we can get the support we need for this. The state may miraculously increase our funding, but given recent history we can't count on much help from them. Even if they do decide to increase our funding we wouldn't know until the end of the legislative session, which would be too late to have a levy for next year. 

We talked about the certified employee evaluations that were just completed on schedule, and reviewed some policy updates. We also changed next months board meeting from Thursday the 9th to Wednesday the 8th, to allow Bart and Paul to attend a girls basketball game.

Some final thoughts. I know we tried to pass two levies a couple years ago, which were close but we failed to get the necessary support. We fortunately have been able to get by without added funds, but this situation can't continue. Our contingency fund keeps dropping and our needs keep growing. To maintain our district at the high standards we have been able to achieve we really need to upgrade the items I listed and others.

 I was recently told by a young man who is considering building a new house something I think is quite telling. He is trying to decide to build within Firth or Shelley school districts. He likes Firth but is concerned how well supported our district is. If we can't get support to meet the basic needs of the district, it will be hard to encourage young families to settle in our district.

We were asked to find out what the patrons in the district think of us requesting a levy. Do you agree with the needs as identified? If there are any questions about this proposal let me know. Almost all districts have been forced to supplement their budgets with supplemental levies, because of lack of funding. It's only because of good district management and holding back on updating things like curriculum that we have done okay. I would really like input. Thank you, Brian

Some Thoughts About Politics

As you know I am involved with several different boards. I have seen how politics work on a lot of different levels. As I see it there are so many things wrong with how things are done. There seems to be less opportunities for there to be any real opposition, or even being able to ask questions within organizations or political parties. If you don't tow the party line and agree with leadership, there are those who will do all they can to force you aside. What happened to the idea of compromise. I know there are some things like your personal values, that can have an influence on how you vote that you shouldn't compromise on. 

I really see this in national and state politics. They are either hard right or hard left with no middle ground. Nobody is willing to cross party leadership for fear of repercussion. For example I was told by a Washington D.C.  Lobbyist if the House of Representatives republican leadership would allow a vote on the Senate immigration bill that it would pass. But since leadership doesn't like the senate bill, they will not bring it up for a vote. So a very few are controlling all of government on this important issue. Congressman Simpson is a man who stands up and is willing to make the right votes that at times goes against leadership. But by his willingness to compromise and get something done, he has a serious hard right challenger, that basically vows to fallow the hard right agenda.  

In state politics much like at the national level there are two factions in the Republican Party fighting for control. I support Republican ideas, but I don't support what seems to be rubber stamping of the leadership agenda. This was very obvious during all the discussion about the education bills. Tom Luna wanted to dramatically change education and all he had to do was get the Governor on his side. And once that happened every Republican followed in line without serious questions being asked. Once the public was able to weigh in on these laws, they were all soundly defeated. With a super majority of Republicans in the state they don't question some of the bills that come to them like they should. They just don't worry about what the public thinks at times. There used to be more moderate state Republicans. But with redistricting and leadership being able to close the primaries a lot of the moderates were weeded out of the party. So now the hard right Republicans are getting more bold. This can be clearly seen by those wanting to have all candidates vetted by party leadership to be able to get on the ballot to run. I don't think these ideas would have been considered at all if the Republican Party hadn't moved so far to the right. 

I am worried about the direction our country is headed. Is it possible for things to change for the better? I'm sure it is, but it will take time, and we the voters need to make our voices be heard where possible. I know if we are willing to do what we can, we can make a difference. I recently wrote an editorial mostly about how much I didn't like what Mr. Smith, Congressman Simpsons challenger, was saying about Mr. Simpson. Through my political connections, my editorial was sent to Mr. Simpson. A few weeks after this was done I was in a state dairy board meeting and Mr. Simpson spoke to our group for about an hour, and he personally thanked me for my editorial. In our area most all state elections are decided in the primaries. We need to know what positions the candidates have and support who we think is best. When the legislature is contemplating legislation that effects us, we need to let them know what we think. 

If the public would have been more in tune with what was going on in our last national election, and not so much about all the promises of how much they were going to get for free, maybe we would have had a different outcome and wouldn't be in the mess we are in now. Lets all hope and pray that eventually our country can get back on the right track. Lets just not sit back and assume that either its hopeless or not worth the effort to be involved. 

Sorry for all the rambling, I guess I needed to vent. I originally wrote more about the national dairy board I'm on, but decided not to include my thoughts about that. Thanks, Brian  

School Board Meeting November 14th, 2013

I was attending a church program that my daughter was involved in so I was late for the meeting and missed the recognition of the cross country teams. They had a good year. The Veterans Day activities were also talked about. The board approved the Audit report from last month. This is when I made it to the meeting. 

There was a report from the Strategic Planning Committee. They are working hard to come up with recommendations to present the board by the end of the year. They are working on four main goals. Finance being the main goal. We need to maintain sound fiscal practices. Our middle school bond expires next June. The annual bond has been about $250,000 each year. It is hoped that we can address the needs of the district by proposing a supplemental levy for the same amount. That way taxes wouldn't go up. 

Some specific needs they have been discussing. 

Curriculum. With the new Idaho Core Standards we will need to purchase new and updated curriculum. Curriculum is very expensive and without additional funds it will be hard to buy what's needed.

Technology. This also goes with the new core standards. The students will be required to do a lot more testing  and school work on computers. To be able to adequately do the testing and work with the new curriculum we will need to have two computer labs in each building and have one to one devices for the high school. With our budget shortfalls it has been hard to maintain computer labs.   

With all the new computers and other technology needs, it is anticipated we will need to hire a second IT staff member.

Facilities. They are looking at the needs for each school. There is a need for heating and cooling upgrades at the elementary. Windows need replaced at the middle school, and flooring at the high school. There are other needs that they are still discussing. I appreciate the work they are doing, and I think when they are done, we can make the case for why we really need to have a supplemental levy. 

The Education Foundation reported on their activities. They have provided grants to teachers for $3325.00 so far this year. They have put out a breakdown of where these grants have gone, so I won't detail it here. They have also helped arrange and provide attendance rewards for the students, which has improved our overall attendance, which in turn brings more funds to the district. They have been a great asset to our district. 

Mr. Tubbs then provided us with a budget update. This was to show how our funding is matching up with our expenses so far this year. Overall it looks like the administration is doing a good job balancing these accounts. 

We then had a detailed report about the soccer program. After completing the two year trial period it is now time to decide if we want it to continue. One of my main concerns at the beginning was how soccer might effect the other sports participation. With the success of the volleyball and cross country  teams, it appears soccer had minimal effect. They won two games this year and had good participation. They are working on player development in the off season by encouraging students to join winter clubs, camps and other ideas. They have had good fundraising activities and other outside and parental support. To continue the program the main expense will be for the coaches stipends. It was estimated for it to continue like any other sports program in the district it would cost around $3000 to $3500. I thought with the added benefit to these students, that soccer was well worth supporting. After some more discussion we decided to vote for the continuation of the soccer program.

We then went through several policy updates. Because of multiple conflicts with the date of next months meeting, we voted to move it up to Tuesday December 10th. As always if you have any questions or concerns let me know. Thanks, Brian

School Board Meeting October 10, 2013

Sorry this has taken me so long to write. I have been very busy since getting back from my vacation to California. 

This was a short meeting without very much business to discuss.  The main matter of business was having our district audit report presented by Morgan Hatt. He provided us with some interesting information about our current budget status as well as how school funding has changed over the years. 

Our capital outlay was a lot higher because of our purchase of the high school bleachers and a school bus. With all our funding sources added up we received about $64,000 less than the year before. Our federal funding was down over $200,000. Our funding would have been a lot worse without the $113,600 we received for the pay for performance plan. If you don't count the extra capital expenses we spent $5801 per student. We had 751 students last year. We have about 776 students this year. It is good to see our enrollment going up some after several years of declines. Part of the reason for the increase is because we went to open enrollment. This school year with the help of the Education Foundation we are rewarding attendance at school. Last year our average attendance was 96%, a 2% increase from the year before. It will be interesting to see how this years attendance ends up. We were told that an Idaho Falls district spends over $15,000 per student, an amazing amount compared to Firth. But overall we are not much different than most districts.

If you followed my blogs about my conversations with Senator Bair and my letters to the newspapers, where I wrote about our school unit funding, and about how it bothered me that Mr. Luna and others made it sound as if they had done such a good job of restoring our funds, this was illustrated in the audit report. Our main funding comes from the unit funds. A unit is a formula of how many students we have and the ages of the students. We had a total of 151.4 units, and received $19,706 for each unit for a total of $2,983,488.40. The year before our unit funding was $19,626 per unit, so we gained a paltry $80 more per unit or around $12,000 more. Not much difference. In the year 2010 our unit funding was $25,459. Based on this past years units if we had been funded at the same level as 2010, we would have received an whopping $871,004.20 more. So $12,000 doesn't even make a real dent in the funding difference. 

Some other things Mr. Hatt pointed out. We used to receive a separate budget amount for our share of the state lottery funds. In the year2009 this amount was $49,588, a nice check courtesy of the lottery. Since then they just somehow factor the lottery money in their funding formula. So there is no way to know what if anything we really get from the lottery. In the year 2009 we also received $53,500 for facility maintenance, and $34,700 for early retirement. Funds we haven't received since. Funding for class supplies of over $13,000 and AG replacement of close to $13,000 ended in the year 2011. He didn't specify amounts, or even bring it up, but our transportation reimbursement has dropped a lot too. Mr. Hatt expressed his concern for our schools if our funding from the state doesn't increase. I brought up how they are emphasizing getting a college education on TV and on the radio, but they need to do more for schools. 

A couple other items presented. Thanks to Mrs. Obama's push to have healthier school lunches, our school lunch participation rate dropped from 66% in 2012 to 55% last year. Just because it may be a little healthier doesn't mean the kids will eat it. Another fact that shows how things have changed. In 2006 43% of the meals served were paid in full by the families. Now only 32% are paid in full. So to me this even makes the participation rate worse, considering how many could eat for a reduced price, or free.

The district overall fund balance is $782,762. The administration has done a good job of controlling our costs. We have cut a lot of things to maintain our fund balance. There are things that will need more funding soon, that we can't keep putting off. This is why we also have a committee working on our Strategic Plan. There is several on this committee including Bart from our board. They are going to report their progress at a future meeting. 

Casey talked about our board goals. After some discussion it was decided we need to get our Strategic Plan updated and tie our goals to the plan. We also need to frequently discuss our plan and goals which we haven't done very well. 

We then discussed  some policy updates. One of them is how we handle sex education in school, and the procedure when parents don't want their kids to participate. We had some questions about this policy that will be clarified at our next meeting. 

Well that is pretty much all that was discussed. As often happens, I seem to write a lot more than I think I will. I hope you find this information informative. If you have  questions about our budget or other comments or concerns let me know. After traveling through California and stopping briefly in Las Vegas, I'm sure glad I live where I do. Thanks, Brian 

School Board Meeting September 12, 2013

It seems as if I have done this before. I am currently in Chicago at a dairy board meeting that starts tomorrow. I probably stay busier  doing other things besides staying at home and running my dairy, than I should. I guess I just try and make a positive difference by being so involved in so many things.

Well on to the meeting. I sure like having the meetings at the middle school library more than the auditorium. It sure is easier to have a discussion without having to worry about the auditorium sound system.

We first recognized Rachel Schiess for her efforts writing a grant and working on the elementary library. She should know pretty soon if the school will get the grant. We then accepted the resignations of Cherise Alvey teaching in the middle school, and Rachel Olsen as the softball coach. Cherise has serious health  issues that forced her to resign. She has been a very good dedicated teacher, and she will be missed. Bryon Moratz was hired to replace Mrs. Alvey. 

We then had a fairly long discussion about our school board walk through of the schools. There is some cosmetic outside problems with the middle school that need fixed. The roof is also getting close to the age where it might need to be replaced. There is carpet issues like usual. We talked about the idea of removing the haul carpets in the middle school and high school, and polishing the cement floor. 

The elementary is getting old and there was some concern expressed about what we might need to do when the infamous boiler quits working. The roof has had some leaking issues, but only in the newest part that was built in 1991. The old siding looks pretty bad. But the building itself is sound. There was some discussion about the costs to do major repairs and options of what could be done when this day comes. Would we consider remodeling the building, building a new building, or abandoning the building and add onto the middle school, to bring the elementary students into the middle school. For strategic planing purposes, we talked about how to go about having someone come to the elementary building to give us cost estimates and ideas of how to replace or repair different things. I suggested we didn't need to have such a detailed plan that we would need to hire someone to do this. I don't know how the heating system for example could be replaced, but I would guess there is a way to replace it and put in some air conditioning. The heating bill is a lot higher than the middle school, but if we improved the outside of the building, insulation could probably be added. Bottom line for me. I will have a hard time being convinced the old elementary, which I think was mostly built in 1962, is anywhere close to the point that we need to consider abandoning it. We have a lot of extra rooms in it, so crowding issues isn't a concern either.

The high school overall looks pretty good. The high school is undergoing the same process as the elementary building did a couple years ago of getting new lighting. Even the old Ag shop will get new lights. We later talked about the parking and bus lane issue by the high school. We might decide to make the improvements in stages. If the costs of a project is kept under $25,000 a year, we don't have to put it up for bids and can probably save  money overall. We will get more ideas about this by next board meeting. 

We approved the Differentiated Pay plan that we had talked about in depth during two previous meetings. Mr. Tubbs had a guideline written up about how this could all be done, which I thought was written very  well. We were told by the press in attendance that on this issues we were way ahead of most other districts getting this plan done. It was good to hear. 

The strategic planning committee met once with about twelve in attendance. I suggested the committee needs to have recommendations to the board in time to go forward with a supplemental levy next spring, if it is determined that we need one, and for how much. 

We had a technology update given to us. Destry is working hard to update the wireless in the buildings, and improve the district web site. We are going to get fiber optics in the elementary school soon. There hasn't been a good way to have dependable Internet in the elementary school. It is a big job trying to use new technology with old, but progress is being made. 

Some teachers were in attendance to talk about the flex program in the middle school and high school. If students have all their assignments turned in and are not failing classes, they get an extra half hour just before lunch. They can go to the library and study or just visit. There is plans for some fun activities for the students to do. On Thursdays the high school students can leave and have a full hour lunch break. The students that have problems have to spend this time in the classes they are having problems in. There is a lot of pier pressure to improve grades and get assignments in. It was expressed how this is a way to reward good habits, instead of always punishing students for bad habits all the time. Darvel Jolley told us in all his years of teaching, I think he said twenty eight years, he has never had his students do so well having their work turned in. He has 107 students in his classes and only had two students with their work not current, and even those two had good excuses. They also said students are  helping other students study to improve their grades. I guess there had been quite a few students in the past who would get way behind turning in their work close to the end of the semester or the school year that would be on the verge of failing, and maybe risking grade advancement or graduation. It looks like this flex program will greatly improve this situation. I would think overall grades should improve too. 

The Education Foundation gave a report. They have a goal to raise $20,000. We were presented a plan of how they are going to go about doing this. It listed how tax deductions are used, to encourage donations. A donor can donate to something specific if they choose to. Their efforts to reward students for perfect attendance seems to be working well so far also. Little kids get really excited about small rewards. Their efforts to help improve attendance should improve our school funding. The foundation has also been doing a lot to improve the elementary library. If you have a chance you should look at the room. My wife made all the little padded chairs, I think they call them poofs. The kids really like them. 

We talked a little about this years school board convention in North Idaho this year. I won't be able to attend, but I think some might. 

I think that was about all we talked about. I get home Thursday evening and will probably try and go to the foundation meeting. I am getting pretty good at typing on my iPad. I know my punctuation and grammar isn't always correct, but I do my best. I hope you find this information beneficial. If you have comments or questions let me know. Brian    

Letter to the Editor, New P.E. Requirements

Letter to the editor

Just what our school district needs, more unfunded mandates from the state. How can the State Department of Education require more P.E. credit requirements without at least restoring more funding to the schools first. When our district was faced with deep funding cuts, we let go of one of our P.E. teachers to reduce our deficit spending. If we have to rehire a P.E. teacher to meet these new requirements it will be a big burden on our district. Also requiring the extra credit will limit some students elective options. These issues should be left up to each district to decide. Maybe when the state restores our funding to pre -recession levels, they could consider these changes. If it was put off until the funding is restored, it will probably never happen, because I very much doubt the funding will ever go back to those levels.   

Brian Esplin 

Firth School Board Member

School Board Meetings Aug. 8th and 13th 2013

I'm sorry how long it has taken me to write this. 

As most of you know early Saturday morning on August 10th my Mother passed away. Her health had been failing for quite a long time. Her mind was still sharp but her body was wearing out. She had fought back many other times to regain a little more strength and with the tender care of my Dad she would hang on. I feel grateful that I visited her the night before and had a chance to tell her how much I loved her, and she told me the same.  My Dad hardly left her side the last two weeks of her life. Their main wish was for her to die at home and for my Dad to be there when she died. My Dad was helping her to the bathroom when she collapsed in his arms and died. The funeral went well and it was good to see so much family. I didn't visit her near as much as I should have, but I am thankful for seeing her that last night. It reaffirmed to me that I should always tell those close to me that I love them, because you never know when it might be for the last time. 

Well enough with my personal life, that's not why you read this. 

One of the first things we did is welcome the new teachers. I mentioned two of them last month. The other new teacher is Andrea Croft. She will teach the third grade. We planned our school walk through for Aug. 29th. We usually do this in January but decided to do this early this year. 

We talked quite a bit about the differentiated pay for the staff for this school year. We had a work meeting the next Tuesday to further discuss this issue. So I will just say what was decided. The certified teachers will receive 90% of the total amount of money we are given. The total amount to be divided up is estimated to be just under $60,000. We decided all certified teachers should have the opportunity to receive an equal share regardless of their pay scale. The 90% share will also go to the building principals. To earn their share the students will have pretests to determine their level of knowledge of the subject.   At the end of the course of study they will then be given a post test. If 80% of the students scores improve 10% they will earn their differentiated pay. If the teachers don't earn their pay, their share will be divided  among those who do. The principals will earn theirs based on how the school they work in improves. There was a lot of discussion about how to divide up the 10%. A lot of schools are only giving this pay to the certified teachers. We had discussed a different split amount, but it is supposed to be based on student achievement, so the teachers should get most of it. It was determined to give half of the 10% on a prorated share to the paraprofessionals. The other half will be given to the rest of the staff. Their are less paraprofessionals than the rest of the staff, so the paraprofessionals will get a larger amount of the funds. All the non certified staff will have to watch training videos, and I think learn CPR. It is hard to decide programs like this. I know some wont be satisfied, but at least we were given more discretion than with the pay for performance plan.    

We were given copies of our Strategic Plan. It has been a long time since this was updated. It was decided to form a committee of teachers parents and the management team. Bart volunteered to be on the committee representing the board. We discussed the need to have many more details than the previous plan.

We then discussed the parking issue between the high school and seminary building. Casey recused himself and left the room, because he has relatives that work for one of the companies that would like to be involve with the project. So as vice chairman I led the discussion. We were given drawings of some ideas of how best to improve the area. Many ideas were presented. It also became apparent the work on this project couldn't be completed this year. It was also determined this is too complicated to come up with a plan on our own. We decided to hire a consultant to guide us through this project. We instructed Mr. Tubbs to go through the process of getting proposals from consultants. Because this area is such a safety issue, we instructed Mr. Tubbs to get some cement block barriers to make a bus lane, with a cross walk to the seminary. 

I also went to the Firth city council meeting to present our preliminary ideas to them and to find out if the city will tie our improvement work with the city road when the work is completed, next year. I was told if it had been this year they probably wouldn't have had the funds, but thought this could be done next year. So we will proceed with the process. I wish we could have got this done this year, but things just haven't happened as fast as it should have. I intend on making sure we are ready to go with this project in the spring. We have around $700,000 in our non student occupied fund that we have to put part of our funding in each year, and can only be spent on outside type projects. We need to be conservative with these funds, but having the funds to do this isn't a problem. I think whatever we decide should be completed all at once and not in stages like some were suggesting. I want it to look nice in the end, and get finished as soon as possible.  I'm sorry we didn't move faster on this project, but at least with the not so pretty barriers it should be safer. 

We were given the results of our school star ratings. The high school moved up from a three star to a four star. The middle school stayed at a three star, but improved in some areas. The elementary stayed at a four star. Ideas were discussed of how to improve the ratings this year.

The foundation presented some ideas they have of rewarding students with perfect attendance. Our funding is determined by attendance so we really need kids to have good attendance. They also talked about the work being done in the elementary library. They have organized a lot of volunteers to paint the room and other improvements. My wife is in the process of making several little colorful padded chairs for it. I think the foundation has shown good support for our schools. 

Well that is pretty much all that was discussed during those meetings. I just found out we have 22 new students signed up for the high school, 19 more in the middle school, and 18 more in the elementary. It will take longer to determine how many are not attending that were here last year. There are two foreign exchange students, and several from Blackfoot. Depending on how many we lost, it looks like we should gain some funding. To me it looks like it's a positive thing that we changed to open enrollment. 

Well so much for thinking this might be short. I seem to always think of more to write than I start out thinking I will. Thanks for those who sent their messages of sympathy and concern to me and my family this past week. It means a lot to know people care. Until next time. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Brian

School Board Meeting July 11th, 2013

There were very few in attendance at this meeting. But just because there isn't a lot of items on an agenda doesn't mean the meeting will be short. When you take into account the executive session the meeting lasted until almost 1:00 a.m. .

The meeting started with the swearing in of the new and re-elected board members, Paul Jensen, Casey Park, and April Christensen to four year terms.   We then had elections to reorganize the board leadership. Casey was re-elected as board chairman. I was elected vice chairman and April was re-elected as treasurer. We then honored John Monson with a plaque honoring him for his six and a half years of service. He says he will keep coming to our meetings to speak up on items when he feels like he needs to. Thanks John for your service.

Mr. Tubbs then announced my son Jacob's resignation from teaching. He has decided to go to graduate school at Utah State to get his Phd, and one day become a college professor. This will take him at least five years to accomplish. Making this decision has been tough for him, and even though I hope and pray he can succeed in his goal it also saddens me. I think he taught for six years. Because of state budget cuts his pay didn't increase since the time he started and he didn't feel like he could support his family the way he needed to. When I first became a board member I thought I would have several grandkids in the district, but not anymore. He waited until the last minute to resign because he needs to sell his house to be able to afford rent at college and he hasn't been able to sell it yet. He decided to take a leap of faith and hopes he can figure out a path forward. 

We then had a discussion about meeting dates and place. I made the suggestion that we change the location to the middle school library. The auditorium is too big and hard to hear in. If there is an issue where we think we will have too many for the library we can move the meeting to the auditorium. After more discussion we decided to have it the same second Thursday at 8:00 in the middle school library. 

We then discussed our board training that Paul, Sid, April, and I went to in Idaho Falls the day before. Paul and April talked about what they learned from the training and then I brought up a few things. One item was we only need to review some policies one time not two like we have always done. This would save time at some of our meetings. I suggested Mr. Tubbs could determine which policies that he thinks only need one reading, and I think that's how we will proceed. We were also told we should try and keep all public comments to the end of the agenda, and not allow it very often before. We also need to state a few more details about some agenda items to better explain and define the topic. We were also told how important it is for our funding to get students to attend school especially through the first reporting period. The foundation is working on some ideas to award kids for attendance. 

We had some discussion about our strategic plan, but didn't get too far into it because we didn't have the plan given to us to review. I think we will get more into it soon. 

We then had a discussion about what is being called Differentiated Pay for our district employees for this next school year. It's kind of like the Pay For Performance program they had before last year. Mr. Tubbs gave us some information from other districts in how they are intending on implementing this program. Our district will have more input into how this money can be distributed than we did before. This money still has to be based somewhat on achievement. One area that will be hard to decide is, do we just give it to the teachers or certified staff, or do we share it with all the non certified staff too. I suggested if possible that we at least share it with the aides that work in the classrooms to help the teachers and students directly. I don't know if this can be divided that way and I don't think Sid knew either. Sid did mention that during some discussions with some of the teachers that they would like to just distribute it amongst themselves. I can understand this too because if all are included the money would be less than half the amount. It's just too bad we can't pay everyone more. We need to have this figured out and turned into the state by October 1st. I think the plan is to have a special board meeting at the end of August to establish our plan. This would give time for the management team and teachers to come up with a recommendation to the board. 

We then talked about the plans for the area between the high school and seminary building. Someone from the city was supposed to be at the meeting but no one was there. I think the preferred plan is to take out the trees, repave the road, put in new sidewalks and curbs, and plant some new trees on a grass berm. A waterline would have to be extended to that area. The suggestion was made that we could do this in phases over two or three years. I didn't agree with this plan. This would be funded by what's called the non student occupied fund. Money that we have to set aside each year for outside maintenance projects. We currently have several hundred thousand dollars in this fund. We are building new baseball backstops at the elementary and a few other projects that will spend some of this money. I feel like if we don't finish the parking and bus lane properly it won't look good or function like we intend it to. With the city working on the road that will connect to it, I think if possible we should tie it together to make it look good. Mr. Tubbs is going to get more cost estimates and get back with us. I hope this can move forward and get done when it needs to. 

We then went into patron input. Liz Killpack presented some great information about what the education foundation is doing. She has done some research into our district strategic plan and came up with ideas in how the foundation can support and enhance our district goals. One exciting project they are working on with the help of a grant, foundation and district funds is to redo the elementary library. They are going to put in new book shelves, paint murals on the walls, put in a new computer and other things. She talked about grants that the foundation would support and the criteria to apply for them. She brought up several other ideas for board consideration. More discussion will take place into how the foundation and district can work together. The board really needs to review and update our strategic plan, which would help this process. I'm am very exited to have support from this hard working group of individuals. 

We also had some concerns brought up to us about our lack of teachers in some grades making class sizes larger than they should be. I wish we could afford more teachers so this wasn't an issue, but without help from the state I have a hard time seeing how we can improve this situation now. 

That pretty much covers our meeting. We then went into executive session and discussed some private matters. 

There is another item I want to mention that should have been brought up at our board meeting. We are getting a big grant from a state fund to replace all the lights in the high school and Ag shop. The newer fixtures will not be replaced in the newest part of the high school, but all the old fixtures will be replaced too. This is the same fund that replaced all the lights in the elementary. Several months ago I was at a state dairy meeting talking about energy audits for dairies. I sat next to the man that oversaw the school grant program.  I mentioned how much we liked the new lights in our elementary. He said there might be some more funds available on a limited basis to do more for our school if we requested it. He gave me his card and told me to have our superintendent contact his office to apply. I gave it to him and he applied. It took a long time but I think just in the last week or two the district was awarded this grant. I don't know what the overall value of this is for our district, but the work in the elementary was worth about $120,000. The same company that worked on the elementary is now evaluating what needs done in the high school. I assume this will get done before school, but I'm not sure. But I do know it will sure brighten things up. 

I'm writhing this on my iPad laying on my hotel bed in Ypsilanti Michigan, a town close to Ann Arbor. I am at a Dairy Management meeting. We are going to tour the Dominos Pizza headquarters tomorrow. Technology is a great thing. As always if you have questions or concerns let me know. Thanks, Brian

June 12th Board Meeting and Other Thoughts

This was a very unusual board meeting for me. I was in Washington DC attending a dairy meeting. I had requested to participate by phone. The auditorium is not really set up for this purpose. I eventually was able to participate during some of the meeting over Casey's phone. I could only hear most of what the board said but not any of the audience, so my report will not be complete.

Julie Cederberg gave a report on the budget, which I didn't hear. I also had no information with me about what was being presented. I had hoped there would be some information on the web site to follow, but there wasn't. All I had was the meeting agenda. I knew the finances would be close to what it was last year, but not really any details. In past years we have had a work session to review the budget, this year we didn't. When I was able to get on the call they had already had the budget presented. When I received the agenda the Friday before the meeting and saw that there was no extra meetings on the agenda I requested we have a work session and an executive session to discuss budget questions and other matters that would potentially effect our budget. I received no response to my request. I made the comparison that we review each policy update twice before we approve them, I thought we should have more time to review the budget, since it is one of our most important duties as board members. During the meeting I was asked what questions I had, but like I said I had no information so it was hard to ask specific questions, other than what I just mentioned. Bottom line, the rest of the board voted to approve the budget and I opposed.

Since I got home Sunday I looked at the information that was sent to me the day of the board meeting, by mail. I have questions and requested more information. I received more details like I requested but have not had a chance to review them yet. I have no problems with how our budget was developed and admire how well our district stays within our budget without a supplemental levy. I will try and figure out more of the details. I won't get into all the details of what budget questions I have. Since the board adopted the budget as presented, that's how we will move forward for this coming school year.

We approved the teacher negotiated contract for the year. There was a substantial insurance increase that we covered out of our small general fund increase from the state. But most of the rest of the contract was about the same as last year. Some teachers will get small increases because of a small bump from the state.

Lisa Jolley and Becky Thane were approved as new teachers in the district. Lisa to teach P.E. and health and Becky to teach math.

There was a report about how the district is doing to comply with Common Core Standards. It was hard to follow over the phone, but we were assured we are doing what is necessary to comply.

They had a discussion about how to update our Strategic Plan, but Casey's phone died, so I didn't hear what was said about this. I know this is something we need to develop a lot more and hope this will happen soon. I called April and was on her phone for the rest of the meeting, but for some reason, April's didn't work as well, I pretty much listened to nothing until the approvals at the end of the meeting.

There was quite a bit of public comment, but I didn't hear any of it. I heard later there was a report from the Education Foundation. I look forward to their help supporting our district.

Over the last while I have had a lot of questions. The first part of the month I emailed Mr. Tubbs a long list of these questions. The next day he replied by email then when I had more questions he called me. I will address some of them here, so if anyone may have wondered the same things you will know what I found out.

I had questions about the teacher negotiations. Mostly the fact that the whole board wasn't informed about what was presented and what was agreed to. Mr. Tubbs sent me a long reply explaining the process and the agreement. I encouraged him to provide more timely information next year.

There is merit pay again this year, similar to last years Pay for Performance plan. We will have to decide how to distribute these funds by September. I think we will have more discretion with the process this year, but it still has to be partly based on student achievement. I think they will get the money in November.

I had asked what summer projects the district was planning on doing this year. I didn't get this question answered at the time but there was information in our board packet. The main project for the high school is the area between the high school and seminary building. The estimated cost is $20,000. They also plan on rebuilding the four baseball backstops at the elementary school for a cost of about $10,000. Other projects include more wood chips and paint in the elementary school playground, and some desks and chairs for a couple of classrooms for about $4,400.

I asked if we ever received a grant for our high school bleachers last year. I knew they had applied for a couple of grants but had never heard if we received any money. Well no we didn't get the grants. I guess they are hard to get.

I had heard we received some grant money from the Idaho Dairy Council, which I am involved with. The school received money for new milk coolers and money to help fund the school breakfast program for next year. We received this for promoting the importance of drinking milk at breakfast. We are the only school in Idaho that received this award. The Breakfast award came from the national processor organization called Milkpep. They do the milk mustache adds among other things. I am glad Amy Dye applied for these funds and that the dairy industry provided them to our district.

I asked about the drill team. I heard from my daughter that the current teacher didn't wish to teach the drill team anymore. I am not sure of the status with the teacher, but I know there is consideration to not have a competitive team. They might decide to have an intramural type team that would only perform at home games and not participate at any competitions. I am curious what the girls think of this idea.

I asked about the suggestion box idea that I brought up after our cottage meeting, to make suggestions to the district. I didn't get a response to this question and forgot to ask about it when I talked to Mr. Tubbs on the phone. I will have to follow up on this.

I asked about the reduction of federal title I funding from the federal government. I was told it might result in the loss of up to two more aides. I later found out that with savings in other areas that we won't have to make these cuts. I'm glad we don't have to cut aides. I think we already are short on aides.

I mentioned how I was disappointed with how few scholarships our graduates received. It seems to me like several years ago our students received a lot more. I also mentioned how my oldest daughter was valedictorian, and worked hard looking for not very typical scholarships. She received $1000 from Tylenol for example, and a very good four year scholarship from an old liberal southern senator. I think our students should be able to get more scholarships, but I don't know how. I was told that the school provides a lot of information about scholarships but there seems to be very little interest for the students and parents to pursue any. Only four of the 60 students applied for the Kiwanis Club scholarship. If anyone has ideas for how the district can improve this process, let me or the administration know.

I asked for more reporting on federal programs. Mr. Tubbs oversees this and I would like to hear more about it at a board meeting. I had read where Shelley had done this. Mr. Tubbs said he does provide some information about this, but I think it would be good for the district to hear more about it.

I had questions about the web site and trying to read the policies. He said that was going to be a summer project to fix these issues. Since I asked him this, the problems have been fixed and the policies are much easier to look up. Hopefully the web site will be updated and work a lot better this next school year.

I asked if the district had any idea of how many students that live within our district that don't attend our schools. I think this would be interesting to know, but I didn't receive a response to this question. Maybe its hard to find out. I think they would have a pretty good idea of how many attend other schools by just calling and asking them. We know who attends our schools that don't live in our district. I would also think there are ways to find out how many are home schooled. I think this would be good information to have. Maybe it would help us to find out why these students don't attend here and try to address their concerns if possible, and encourage them to come back to Firth. More students mean more funding.

I also asked about the idea of evaluating the non core programs in the district. This idea had come up during a discussion recently but no action has been taken to do this. The management team has done this, but I think the board should review each program. I think we need to determine the level of support for these programs and the costs. I am not saying I want any of our already limited programs cut, but if we don't have much participation, we need to try and promote them more, find ways to improve them, or maybe try and provide something else if possible that would draw more interest. I will need to suggest further discussions about this.

There were a few more questions that were answered in other ways and some I can't discuss here. Next month we will welcome Paul Jensen as our new school board member. I would like to thank John Monson for his many years of service on our school board. This is also when we have our board reorganization and set the date, and place for our board meetings. I would rather we had our meetings in either the high school or middle school library. We seldom have enough visitors for there not to be enough room in the library. I think if we anticipated a large crowd we could move to the auditorium. Having the meetings in the library we wouldn't have to deal with our problematic sound system, and we could see and hear those who desire to give public comment better. I don't know if the rest of the board will support this idea. Let me know if you have a strong opinion either way about this.

I hope this information is worthwhile. I debated if I should write a blog this month. As always if you have any comments or suggestions let me know. Thanks, Brian