This board meeting ended up being a long one with a lot of information. So I will get right to it. The first thing was to recognize the students that went to the state FCCLA competition. Eight students went to state. Three presentations received top gold, or first place. Six of the kids qualified for nationals. Only my daughter Celeste chose to go and compete in San Antonio this summer. They did real well and provided a lot of service to many with their projects. Mrs. Anthony also received the FCCLA advisor of the year award.
Brent Malcolm is retiring at the end of the month. He has worked for the district for 33 years. He was presented a plaque by Mr. Tubbs thanking him for all his years of service. We also accepted the resignation of Mrs. Stegelmeier. She accepted a position teaching at Ucon Elementary close to where she lives. Good luck to her.
We then had a discussion about the budget. The administrators still don't have all the information yet from the state. The annual budget hearing will be next month. About 90% of our district budget goes to salaries and benefits. Most of the teachers will get a small raise from the state of about $400, not much of a pay raise. The Supplemental Levy funds are dedicated to specific uses and will have a separate designation in the budget. Most of the new money has strings attached, we will have little or no say with how these funds are spent. It bothers me how it seems the state is taking more control over every aspect of our budget and operations.
We talked about how to spend some of the Student Occupied and Non Student Occupied Funds. As I've said before we are required to put money into these funds each year, and they can only be used for basically inside or outside improvement projects. The Student Occupied Fund is what we used to buy the high school bleachers, for example. By the end of the budget year we will have about $700,000 in our Non Student Occupied Fund. A healthy sum. I wish we could draw some for other uses, but can't. It was recommended we spend about $36,000. Proposing $22,000 to further improve the bus lane and parking between the high school and seminary building. $10,000 for a new backstop for the high school baseball field. $2,000 for some concrete work around the middle school play ground. $2,000 for more wood chips for the playground at the elementary. After going over these proposals, I questioned if there were other needs we could address with these funds. I also tried to find out about how much we put into these funds every year, and Mr. Tubbs wasn't sure. I think it's 2% of the replacement costs of the buildings, but I don't know what that amount is. He will let us know more about this later. I asked for a wish list of improvements. With as large as this budget is, I think we should consider doing more things if the needs are justified. I suggested more and better lighting in the high school parking lot. It was also mentioned how there is no real lighting between the high school and seminary building. I didn't think about it at the time, but we have talked about putting in cold weather entries at the elementary. I think we could use these funds for this if the board supports it. I think the elementary could use a major facelift, with some new windows, and doing something about the old siding.
The Student Occupied Fund has about $180,000 in it. They are proposing a budget expenditure of $25,750. The major portion of this money, $14,000 will be used to remove the carpet in the hallway of the high school, and to buff the concrete. It would look like the Ag shop, if you have seen it. This is a common way to finish floors in buildings now. Carpet just doesn't hold up in hallways. We talked a little about doing something similar in at least part of the middle school, but no decision was made. There may be some classrooms that will get new carpet too. Other items were painting and upgrading the phone systems in all buildings. They also want to buy some more desks and chairs for the elementary. I asked if all projects had to be planned out with the budget figured out for them before the budget is approved. I was told no. The budget for these funds are for these purposes, so we can decide anytime to spend out of them if we need to.
Other budget items, that are mostly dedicated to specific things are; $1,000 for the 8 in 6 Program. $9,200 for content and curriculum. $35,000 for leadership premiums. $6,500 to add to the levy money for math and science. $30,000 for professional development. Some of this might be used to send teachers to a training conference. $2,000 for strategic planning. $6,225 for safe schools, this can be used for the dare program, security cameras, and better door security.
There is also a proposal for $34,350 to spend on technology in addition to the levy money. And finally $25,000 out of the general fund for supplies and other miscellaneous uses.
We then had a lengthy discussion about the calendar for next year. There was some talk of going to school after Memorial Day, which I have been against. There was also some talk of starting a couple days earlier to give the teachers more time with the students. It was said how good it is to have as many days as possible early in the year for students taking AP classes. The AP tests are around the middle of May so extending the school year after Memorial Day wouldn't benefit these students. In the end, we approved a similar schedule as this year. We will start August 18th and end before Memorial Day. We will have school the Monday and Tuesday before Christmas, which is on Thursday. In 2016 Memorial Day is later in the month, and the dates will be easier to manage.
We talked about the Leadership Premium plan for this year. The state has had some type of Pay for Performance Plan each year recently, but every year they change the name and rules for how we use these funds. The state really doesn't want us to set up a performance plan that all teachers can qualify for. But how do we as a board determine who qualifies for these funds and who doesn't. It was pointed out some teachers wouldn't want to teach certain subjects or classes if they couldn't qualify for extra pay. Mr. Tubbs said the state has threatened to end these programs if districts don't use the funds the way they want us to. The management team developed two plans, the plan we accepted is each teacher can receive an equal share of the money which is $850. Every teacher will have to accept a committee leadership position and accomplish certain things to receive the money. If, for some reason a teacher doesn't qualify for the money, the balance will be divided among those who do. The state won't like it, but it does meet their mandated requirements. Unlike last year we can only give it to the certified teachers.
We discussed the Differentiated Pay Plan we had for this school year, same type program as I described above, just different name and rules. Basically, the students took pre and post tests. 80% of the students needed to achieve at least a 10% growth. There was more to it than this, but everyone will get a share of the funds as we set it up last year at this time.
We were presented a report about the recent SBAk testing, I'm not sure if I got the abbreviation right. It is a test of the test for common core. There was a lot of concern about several aspects of the testing. The length of the testing was a problem. It took at least two and a half hours for most kids. Some kids knew it didn't count for anything this year, so they just skimmed through it. The teachers giving the test couldn't say anything or look at the questions during the testing. Questions could be asked afterwords. One concern has been how there might be a too liberal slant to the questions, or questions about moral issues our community wouldn't like. Mr. Jolley didn't think from what he was told that this was a problem. I think one of the biggest problems with this is the lack of feedback we will get. They don't seem to want us to know how we can change or focus our teaching, so the kids will learn what is needed to score well on the tests. It also makes it hard to gage overall performance of our schools. I think essentially we will go three years between real testing results. I asked how many students ended up not taking the test because of these concerns. Four in the elementary, five in the middle school, and two in the high school were held out of the testing by their parents. I know there are threats to the school funding if we don't get most of the kids to take the test in the future, another strong arm state tactic to get us to comply with what they want. I guess we will see what happens going forward or if anything changes.
We then had a discussion about raising the participation fees for the athletic programs. We have had outstanding success with our programs this year. Five out of six girls sports teams won the district tournaments, and three out of six boys teams won. I think that's right. So we sent a lot of kids to state, which costs a lot of money. When we had to make cutbacks a few years ago, we decided then that the athletic programs should be as self sufficient as possible. Before this weekend's tournaments, the district has spent $12,000 just for hotel rooms. The state average transportation cost for busing is $3.63 per mile. Firth's cost is $3.15. There has been some questions if taking an extra bus, that isn't used for regular bus routes, would be cheaper to use. Mr. Tubbs said he didn't think it made any difference, but he would find out more from Mr. Kunz the bus foreman. As far as net revenue from gate admissions, the boys basketball program brought in $6,000, the football program made $2,000 and I think he said the girls basketball made $62. The proposal going forward is to raise the student fee per sport from $100 to $110, and to require the athletes to pay for their own hotel rooms at state. They anticipate this added revenue to make up the deficient that we have had over the last three years. The middle school fees would go up $10 per sport. There is concern about how this will effect the kids. We don't like the idea of kids not being able to participate because of the added cost. Some ideas were talked about how to help those that really need it. This increase in fees will be presented next month as part of our budget hearing. One other fee increase presented is to increase the drivers education class from $75 to $125.
The senior sneak was approved for next Tuesday to Lagoon, and my daughter going to FCCLA nationals was also approved. There was some policy readings and approvals. We then went into executive session to discuss personnel and labor negotiations.
Well I hope you made it to the end of this blog. As I said there was a lot of information. I hope some find it valuable. It took me a long time to write it too. I appreciated those in attendance who stayed to the end. I didn't get home until 12:30 that night. I look forward to giving my daughter her diploma next week. It will be different not having any kids in school anymore. As always if you have any questions or concerns let me know. If you have ideas of facility improvements you think we should consider, let me know that too.
Thanks, Brian
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