Wednesday, February 17, 2016
February 17, 2016 Blog Update
I thought I would give a short update about the soccer program that I talked about in my blog. I have received some new information and wanted to reassure soccer supporters that I support your efforts to make the boys soccer program a success.
I heard there were 14 boys playing soccer last year instead of the 12 we heard at the meeting. They had numerous fundraisers with a lot of parental involvement. Their efforts to fully fund the program fell short, but not by very much at all. Only one player graduated from last years team, and there are five freshman that are planning on playing this year. They are practicing every Saturday, to get ready for the season. It takes a lot of work to start a new program, and from what I heard today the boys and their parents are doing their best to make boys, and girls soccer for that matter a success. I'm sorry if I gave anyone the impression that I was not supporting your efforts. Good luck to both teams this year. Thank you, Brian
Monday, February 15, 2016
February 11, 2016 School Board Meeting
Since I missed the last two meetings it's been quite awhile since I wrote a blog. I would have made it to the last meeting if they hadn't changed the date. I don't like missing meetings, because it's hard to find out what happened and I like to be involved in the discussions. There was board training before the board meeting. I was traveling home from the California Ag Equipment Show, so I missed the training.
The meeting started out with a Strategic Planning Committee report given by Mr. Gee. The report was all about the technology needs of the district. Student education is moving away from paper textbooks, to personal tablets. The district has quite a few chromebooks. They are an inexpensive, what you might call a mini laptop. They work off wifi. There are controls and monitoring of what they can access on the Internet. They can't store data directly on them. The students use an Internet based program to save their information on. To be able to eventually move away from most textbooks, the district will need a lot more chromebooks. There is also a need for projectors, whiteboards, teacher laptops, chromebook carts (to plug them into) and the need to fund a second IT person to support all the district's technology. The cost estimate for all of these needs is just shy of $200,000 a year over the next two years. I asked what the ongoing costs estimates would be. He didn't have that information available. It was asked how much direct funding we get now from the state for technology. Mr. Tubbs said somewhere around $34,000.
The discussion moved into the idea of continuing a Supplemental Levy to fund our district technology needs. We currently have around a $230,000 levy. It was recommended by the Planning Committee to ask for a levy to support this technology plan. Other district needs-like facility maintenance issues-could be funded with other funds. We spent quite a bit in the last couple years upgrading computer labs. Now it looks like the direction is to move away from the labs to the chromebooks. Without the state providing a substantial amount more funding that we could use for technology in future years, it looks like we would have to maintain some level of Supplemental Levy funding. I haven't liked the idea of being a district that depends on supplemental tax funding. We are going to have a Board Work Meeting on February 26th at 4:00, to go over everything so we know what direction we would like to go. We won't vote on anything until our next board meeting on March 10th. We need more information to be able to make the decision.
Some more thoughts I have on this issue. Paper textbooks, in at least most subjects, have been used for many years before they are replaced. From what we learned, chromebooks would need to be replaced every three to four years. Textbook software for the chromebooks is thought to be cheaper than paper books, but not as much as you would think. I would also guess that since this software is supported by a textbook company, they would have some kind of constant updating and replacement program. No keeping the same thing for ten or more years anymore. How expensive might this be? Will the state recognize the needs of districts to move toward more technology and appropriately fund it? I'm actually in Boise today for a dairy meeting. There is a dinner with some of our state legislators. I'm going to try and talk to our county legislators if they are there tonight. We have to decide if we want to go forward with a new levy by our March board meeting to get it on the ballot in time for next year's funding. Will the patrons of the district support a continuation of a levy? Is it right to limp along and do the best we can to provide the needed technology?
I did get a chance to talk to the Idaho House Chairman Bedke today. I asked him about funding as he was leaving the meeting. He said the priorities are teacher funding and the Maintenance and Operations Budget. Technology funding is probably third in priorities. Their goal is to increase our M&O funding back to pre recession levels. If they accomplish this level of funding, we will get some additional funding, but not near as much as we need to fund this proposal.
Well to move on. We also talked about the status of the Boy's Soccer Program. They were given two years to prove the program would be viable. From my assessment, so far it doesn't look very good. It is supposed to be self funding. Last year it fell short, the amount of the shortfall was unclear. We were also told when the proposal was made, they would have 18-20 boys ready to play. They had twelve. It takes eleven to make a team. They don't seem to have near as much parental support as the Girl's Program had when they were going through the trial period. I asked how many they anticipate will play this year. They will try and find out. Unless things look better after another year and they step up and pay the costs they committed to, I will have a hard time supporting the program's continuation.
After some policy reviews and a little more public comment, we moved into executive session. We talked about personnel evaluations. After the executive session, we voted to extend Mr. Tubbs contract for another year, for a total of three years.
This ended up a lot longer than I thought it would. I don't take asking for Supplemental Funding lightly. We will have a lot to discuss at our Work Meeting. I had been optimistic we wouldn't need another levy. But to properly educate our kids, it's looking like we can't get there with our current amount of funding. Let me know if you have any ideas, and what you think about it. If the board knows the community is behind us, it will make it a lot easier to go forward. If you have any other questions or comments let me know. Thank you, Brian
The meeting started out with a Strategic Planning Committee report given by Mr. Gee. The report was all about the technology needs of the district. Student education is moving away from paper textbooks, to personal tablets. The district has quite a few chromebooks. They are an inexpensive, what you might call a mini laptop. They work off wifi. There are controls and monitoring of what they can access on the Internet. They can't store data directly on them. The students use an Internet based program to save their information on. To be able to eventually move away from most textbooks, the district will need a lot more chromebooks. There is also a need for projectors, whiteboards, teacher laptops, chromebook carts (to plug them into) and the need to fund a second IT person to support all the district's technology. The cost estimate for all of these needs is just shy of $200,000 a year over the next two years. I asked what the ongoing costs estimates would be. He didn't have that information available. It was asked how much direct funding we get now from the state for technology. Mr. Tubbs said somewhere around $34,000.
The discussion moved into the idea of continuing a Supplemental Levy to fund our district technology needs. We currently have around a $230,000 levy. It was recommended by the Planning Committee to ask for a levy to support this technology plan. Other district needs-like facility maintenance issues-could be funded with other funds. We spent quite a bit in the last couple years upgrading computer labs. Now it looks like the direction is to move away from the labs to the chromebooks. Without the state providing a substantial amount more funding that we could use for technology in future years, it looks like we would have to maintain some level of Supplemental Levy funding. I haven't liked the idea of being a district that depends on supplemental tax funding. We are going to have a Board Work Meeting on February 26th at 4:00, to go over everything so we know what direction we would like to go. We won't vote on anything until our next board meeting on March 10th. We need more information to be able to make the decision.
Some more thoughts I have on this issue. Paper textbooks, in at least most subjects, have been used for many years before they are replaced. From what we learned, chromebooks would need to be replaced every three to four years. Textbook software for the chromebooks is thought to be cheaper than paper books, but not as much as you would think. I would also guess that since this software is supported by a textbook company, they would have some kind of constant updating and replacement program. No keeping the same thing for ten or more years anymore. How expensive might this be? Will the state recognize the needs of districts to move toward more technology and appropriately fund it? I'm actually in Boise today for a dairy meeting. There is a dinner with some of our state legislators. I'm going to try and talk to our county legislators if they are there tonight. We have to decide if we want to go forward with a new levy by our March board meeting to get it on the ballot in time for next year's funding. Will the patrons of the district support a continuation of a levy? Is it right to limp along and do the best we can to provide the needed technology?
I did get a chance to talk to the Idaho House Chairman Bedke today. I asked him about funding as he was leaving the meeting. He said the priorities are teacher funding and the Maintenance and Operations Budget. Technology funding is probably third in priorities. Their goal is to increase our M&O funding back to pre recession levels. If they accomplish this level of funding, we will get some additional funding, but not near as much as we need to fund this proposal.
Well to move on. We also talked about the status of the Boy's Soccer Program. They were given two years to prove the program would be viable. From my assessment, so far it doesn't look very good. It is supposed to be self funding. Last year it fell short, the amount of the shortfall was unclear. We were also told when the proposal was made, they would have 18-20 boys ready to play. They had twelve. It takes eleven to make a team. They don't seem to have near as much parental support as the Girl's Program had when they were going through the trial period. I asked how many they anticipate will play this year. They will try and find out. Unless things look better after another year and they step up and pay the costs they committed to, I will have a hard time supporting the program's continuation.
After some policy reviews and a little more public comment, we moved into executive session. We talked about personnel evaluations. After the executive session, we voted to extend Mr. Tubbs contract for another year, for a total of three years.
This ended up a lot longer than I thought it would. I don't take asking for Supplemental Funding lightly. We will have a lot to discuss at our Work Meeting. I had been optimistic we wouldn't need another levy. But to properly educate our kids, it's looking like we can't get there with our current amount of funding. Let me know if you have any ideas, and what you think about it. If the board knows the community is behind us, it will make it a lot easier to go forward. If you have any other questions or comments let me know. Thank you, Brian
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