May 12, 2016 School Board Meeting

I missed writing a blog last month. There wasn't a lot of business and I have been gone a lot. There wasn't a lot of business at this meeting either, but I wanted to express my thoughts on some things. I will get to it a bit later. 

The first thing I want to do is thank everyone that supported our Supplemental Levy. The levy money will really help with our technology needs. We soon will be the only district in the county with a one to one device for each student. I really hope the time will come where we won't need to ask for any more Supplemental Levies. At least we were able to lower the amount substantially.

The first matter of business was the resignation of Carla Reeves. She will be teaching next year in Shelley. I know she will be missed. I wish her the best in her new position in Shelley. We also approved the hiring of five new teachers. Patrice Williams 2nd grade, Sarah Bates 4th grade, Elizabeth Grosbeck 5th grade, Tracy Messick MS English, and Nicole Hopkins Special Education. Darren Jolley will also move to MS Social Studies. These teachers all have local ties. I'm glad the district was able to hire such a good group of teachers. 

We then had a long discussion about the possibility of bringing back humanities courses. Mr. Tubbs has heard that the state is going to change the current highly qualified certification teacher requirements. We used to have drama for example, but when they changed the requirements, drama had to be dropped because the teacher wasn't highly qualified. Hopefully this will change so more electives could be offered. I don't know how soon we will know if, or how this will change. 

There is a strong desire by some to start a band and choir program. A few years ago this was tried, but in the end it didn't work out very well and when the funding was cut from the state, the music program was dropped. There were some patrons in attendance who spoke in favor of starting a music program. Other board members said they have heard from several patrons who would like the district to offer band again. Nobody in my zone has indicated any desire to start band, at least not to me. I wish there was a way to find out how many kids would sign up and stay in band. If band was started the district would probably require a humanities credit, which would be just one semester, for graduation. Several years ago when there was a successful band program our class sizes were larger, and there were less requirements for graduation. With smaller classes, band students would need to stay in band throughout high school. As you can tell I'm not convinced a band program would be successful now. But my biggest concern is how to fund a full time music teacher and maintain the funding indefinitely. In the past the funding came from a certified teaching position. All our teaching positions are currently filled. One thing that was done before is having one less teacher in a grade that had less students. I don't think it was very easy to move teachers around so much to accommodate the changing class sizes. We do have one class of about 47 students. If we had an open teacher position, which we don't, would it be okay to only have two teachers in this grade, so there would be more students in each of the two classes? If a position opened up, I'm not sure if this would be a good option.

Another idea suggested by other board members was to use some of our Contingency Fund. We currently have over $800,000 in this account. This money is set aside as a savings account. Our accountant has recommended we maintain a minimum of at least two months of our operating budget. As long as I've been on the board our contingency has been pretty close to this amount. I asked the business manager how long it took to build the fund up to this level. She said when she started, I can't remember for sure how long ago she said, but around 30 years ago, the Contingency Fund was around $700,000. So this fund may go up and down a little over time, but stays close to the same. I made it very clear during this meeting that I will not support funding a music teacher out of our Contingency Fund. I was definitely in the minority over not wanting to use this fund. Next month will be our budget meeting, where all our projected funding and expenses will be presented to us. They also estimate where our Contingency fund will end up. There is no guarantee that our funding will continue to improve or even drop in the future. Mr. Tubbs was asked to discuss with the management team how we might go forward with a music program. Our district has done a very good job operating with a conservative budget. I think it would be irresponsible to start a band program without a secure plan to fund it.

Mr. Tubbs talked about the district funding. But as I said they will present the budget for our approval next month. He also talked about the Leadership Premium Plan. This year every certified teacher earned the premium. The state doesn't like how we allow every teacher the opportunity to earn the same premium. They changed it for next year. They raised the minimum amount from $850 to $900, but the catch is the state won't fund the extra $50. So if we want to maintain our program the same, we will have to come up with the extra $50 for each premium earned. We are going to continue the program the same as in the past. Some teachers were asked to be there to tell us how they earned their premium. They truly work for the little extra money, and I sure wouldn't want to purposely exclude anyone. 

Well that is all that was discussed. If you want to, let me know what you think about the challenges of starting a music program. It's not a simple decision. I played in the band from the fifth grade through the first part of my senior year.  I enjoyed my time in band until my senior year. We had a new teacher that was terrible and the program struggled. She would literally degrade and swear at anyone over the littlest things. I refused to listen to her do things like that, so I quit. I do think it's hard to find the right person to teach band, which is another concern. 

Thank you. I welcome your comments, or input. Brian