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
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