March 17, 2016 School Board Meeting

I guess if I wanted to title this blog with something, it would be the Supplemental Levy request that almost wasn't, but I will get to that later. 

The board meeting started with the many achievements of the winter sports and activity programs. The wrestlers that made it to state did well with a sixth, third and first place finish. The girls basketball team was third in a tough district, with some upset wins along the way. The boys basketball team won state for the third year in a row and the seventh time in ten years. They also won the district championship for the tenth year in a row. The cheerleaders won all four categories of competition at districts. BPA did very well, and so did the FCCLA at their district competitions. 

Four resignations were accepted by the board. Kathy Beckwith, Marcele Tanner, Hallie Crockett, and Katy Killpack. Everyone accept Katy is retiring after many years of service to our district. I wish them well in their retirement, and thank them for all they did for the students of the Firth school district. 

A short update from our last meeting was given about the boys soccer program. Mr. Harrison said fourteen boys paid to play last year, and their budget was only $100 in the hole, instead of the much higher amount we were told last month. The district also hired another coach that will help with both the boys and girls soccer programs. Having another coach should help a lot. The boys are also working on figuring out fundraisers to raise the money they need for this years program. 

We then had a long discussion about the idea of asking for a new Supplemental Levy. The $230,000 two year levy expired this year. We recently had a two hour or so long work meeting to go over the Strategic Planning Committee's Supplemental Levy recommendation. I have thought a lot about this since the idea of continuing a levy was first brought up. I so much wanted not to have to be one of the around 100 districts in the state who depend on Supplemental Levies to survive. The state is restoring more of the school districts maintenance and operation budgets. They intend to fund us back to the level we were in 2009 before the recession hit the state budget, but this increase won't come close to providing enough funds for the technology needed. The original request was for $200,000, less than our last levy, so taxes would go down a little. During our work meeting I think there was somewhat of a consensus that a lessor amount would work to cover most of what they wanted. Since our work meeting I had thought of several more questions that I then emailed to Mr. Tubbs. Mr. Tubbs found out no other district in our county is anywhere close to having one to one devices for their students. Shelley stated they only have 60 in the whole district with the hope of buying another 100 this year. One main reason the other districts are so far behind on getting this technology is their lack of bandwidth in their buildings to provide the needed bandwidth to run all the devices. Firth is fortunate to have all the bandwidth we need. I think we received a grant that helped this process along. Kind of satisfying that we lead the county districts in being prepared to provide one to one technology to our district students. After many comments from the board about the needed technology and other district needs, I made the motion to request a $130,000 two year Supplemental Levy. The levy would be used to buy chromebooks, chromebook charging stations, projectors, and other technology needs. It would also be used to help support our current second IT Tech. We were told without these funds it would be very hard to fund the second position, and without the Tech our district couldn't keep up on maintaining all our technology. Technology is moving school districts to e-books instead of paper text books. The election will be May 17th, the same as the states primary election. 

That was pretty much all that we discussed at our meeting. Now to explain my first statement. The next day I received a text from the Morning News asking me if we had voted to ask for a levy. I answered explaining the amount we asked for and what it would be used for. This was about 2:45 on Friday. A few minutes later I got a call at home from the county election office. The election officer asked if I knew the district had until 5:00 that day to have all the proper paperwork submitted for the levy. I'm not sure why, but I was the first one she had called. I'm not usually around that time of day. Well I called Mr. Tubbs and asked him about it. He thought we had another week to submit the information. He said he would get to work on it, to get it sent in. I received another text, telling me basically the same thing I heard from the county office, other than it said there would need to be a board signature. I got thinking maybe I, as vice chairman,  would have to sign the paper, since Casey works in Pocatello and probably wouldn't be available in time. I called Mr. Tubbs and asked if he needed my help, and offered to do so. It was about 3:40 by then. I had an appointment at 4:00, but decided I better do what I needed to do to help out.  I went to the elementary office where Mr. Tubbs was working on the forms. The county had emailed him the ballot papers from Aberdeen's last levy, so he could easily edited it to the information we needed. Julie has been sick so she wasn't in the loop as to what needed done. After doing the necessary editing Mr. Tubbs tried to print the paperwork. No matter what he tried it wouldn't work. As the time past, he decided we should go to the district office and try it there. By this time it was about 4:40. He had to do the edits all over again. He got the edits done and tried to print the forms, it still didn't work. I looked at the printer and it said to insert legal paper. It then dawned on Mr. Tubbs that was probably the same problem we were having at the elementary. After adding the right paper, and finally getting them printed, Mr. Tubbs realized he didn't have the fax number. I looked it up and he faxed it in, but a couple minutes later he found out the county didn't get the paperwork. He then realized he needed to dial 8 first. He then sent it in the right way and it went through. He was on the phone with the county when it came through and she timed stamped the forms. I think the time was about 4:58 when she stamped it.

The significance of this is if it would have been after 5:00 it would have been past the deadline. This is the last date an election can be held to receive the funding for the  next school year. It would have been hard to afford our second ITperson. It would also have been embarrassing for the board and administration to have missed the deadline. Now it will be up to the district patrons to decide if they are willing to support our levy request. I think it's a good thing I have tried to be transparent and willing to communicate with those who want to communicate with me. If I hadn't responded to the first text when I did, the deadline would have passed and we would have been out of luck until next year. 

Well this turned out very long. I have also been out of town at a dairy meeting since Sunday morning. If anyone has questions about the Supplemental Levy, let me know. I personally determined to maintain our progress toward technology and to afford the much needed Tech, we need this levy. There are other areas the district will need to spend additional money on. I don't think it would be a good idea to overspend our M&O budget on technology. Thanks, Brian