School Board Meeting September 12, 2013

It seems as if I have done this before. I am currently in Chicago at a dairy board meeting that starts tomorrow. I probably stay busier  doing other things besides staying at home and running my dairy, than I should. I guess I just try and make a positive difference by being so involved in so many things.

Well on to the meeting. I sure like having the meetings at the middle school library more than the auditorium. It sure is easier to have a discussion without having to worry about the auditorium sound system.

We first recognized Rachel Schiess for her efforts writing a grant and working on the elementary library. She should know pretty soon if the school will get the grant. We then accepted the resignations of Cherise Alvey teaching in the middle school, and Rachel Olsen as the softball coach. Cherise has serious health  issues that forced her to resign. She has been a very good dedicated teacher, and she will be missed. Bryon Moratz was hired to replace Mrs. Alvey. 

We then had a fairly long discussion about our school board walk through of the schools. There is some cosmetic outside problems with the middle school that need fixed. The roof is also getting close to the age where it might need to be replaced. There is carpet issues like usual. We talked about the idea of removing the haul carpets in the middle school and high school, and polishing the cement floor. 

The elementary is getting old and there was some concern expressed about what we might need to do when the infamous boiler quits working. The roof has had some leaking issues, but only in the newest part that was built in 1991. The old siding looks pretty bad. But the building itself is sound. There was some discussion about the costs to do major repairs and options of what could be done when this day comes. Would we consider remodeling the building, building a new building, or abandoning the building and add onto the middle school, to bring the elementary students into the middle school. For strategic planing purposes, we talked about how to go about having someone come to the elementary building to give us cost estimates and ideas of how to replace or repair different things. I suggested we didn't need to have such a detailed plan that we would need to hire someone to do this. I don't know how the heating system for example could be replaced, but I would guess there is a way to replace it and put in some air conditioning. The heating bill is a lot higher than the middle school, but if we improved the outside of the building, insulation could probably be added. Bottom line for me. I will have a hard time being convinced the old elementary, which I think was mostly built in 1962, is anywhere close to the point that we need to consider abandoning it. We have a lot of extra rooms in it, so crowding issues isn't a concern either.

The high school overall looks pretty good. The high school is undergoing the same process as the elementary building did a couple years ago of getting new lighting. Even the old Ag shop will get new lights. We later talked about the parking and bus lane issue by the high school. We might decide to make the improvements in stages. If the costs of a project is kept under $25,000 a year, we don't have to put it up for bids and can probably save  money overall. We will get more ideas about this by next board meeting. 

We approved the Differentiated Pay plan that we had talked about in depth during two previous meetings. Mr. Tubbs had a guideline written up about how this could all be done, which I thought was written very  well. We were told by the press in attendance that on this issues we were way ahead of most other districts getting this plan done. It was good to hear. 

The strategic planning committee met once with about twelve in attendance. I suggested the committee needs to have recommendations to the board in time to go forward with a supplemental levy next spring, if it is determined that we need one, and for how much. 

We had a technology update given to us. Destry is working hard to update the wireless in the buildings, and improve the district web site. We are going to get fiber optics in the elementary school soon. There hasn't been a good way to have dependable Internet in the elementary school. It is a big job trying to use new technology with old, but progress is being made. 

Some teachers were in attendance to talk about the flex program in the middle school and high school. If students have all their assignments turned in and are not failing classes, they get an extra half hour just before lunch. They can go to the library and study or just visit. There is plans for some fun activities for the students to do. On Thursdays the high school students can leave and have a full hour lunch break. The students that have problems have to spend this time in the classes they are having problems in. There is a lot of pier pressure to improve grades and get assignments in. It was expressed how this is a way to reward good habits, instead of always punishing students for bad habits all the time. Darvel Jolley told us in all his years of teaching, I think he said twenty eight years, he has never had his students do so well having their work turned in. He has 107 students in his classes and only had two students with their work not current, and even those two had good excuses. They also said students are  helping other students study to improve their grades. I guess there had been quite a few students in the past who would get way behind turning in their work close to the end of the semester or the school year that would be on the verge of failing, and maybe risking grade advancement or graduation. It looks like this flex program will greatly improve this situation. I would think overall grades should improve too. 

The Education Foundation gave a report. They have a goal to raise $20,000. We were presented a plan of how they are going to go about doing this. It listed how tax deductions are used, to encourage donations. A donor can donate to something specific if they choose to. Their efforts to reward students for perfect attendance seems to be working well so far also. Little kids get really excited about small rewards. Their efforts to help improve attendance should improve our school funding. The foundation has also been doing a lot to improve the elementary library. If you have a chance you should look at the room. My wife made all the little padded chairs, I think they call them poofs. The kids really like them. 

We talked a little about this years school board convention in North Idaho this year. I won't be able to attend, but I think some might. 

I think that was about all we talked about. I get home Thursday evening and will probably try and go to the foundation meeting. I am getting pretty good at typing on my iPad. I know my punctuation and grammar isn't always correct, but I do my best. I hope you find this information beneficial. If you have comments or questions let me know. Brian    

Letter to the Editor, New P.E. Requirements

Letter to the editor

Just what our school district needs, more unfunded mandates from the state. How can the State Department of Education require more P.E. credit requirements without at least restoring more funding to the schools first. When our district was faced with deep funding cuts, we let go of one of our P.E. teachers to reduce our deficit spending. If we have to rehire a P.E. teacher to meet these new requirements it will be a big burden on our district. Also requiring the extra credit will limit some students elective options. These issues should be left up to each district to decide. Maybe when the state restores our funding to pre -recession levels, they could consider these changes. If it was put off until the funding is restored, it will probably never happen, because I very much doubt the funding will ever go back to those levels.   

Brian Esplin 

Firth School Board Member

School Board Meetings Aug. 8th and 13th 2013

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

School Board Meeting July 11th, 2013

There were very few in attendance at this meeting. But just because there isn't a lot of items on an agenda doesn't mean the meeting will be short. When you take into account the executive session the meeting lasted until almost 1:00 a.m. .

The meeting started with the swearing in of the new and re-elected board members, Paul Jensen, Casey Park, and April Christensen to four year terms.   We then had elections to reorganize the board leadership. Casey was re-elected as board chairman. I was elected vice chairman and April was re-elected as treasurer. We then honored John Monson with a plaque honoring him for his six and a half years of service. He says he will keep coming to our meetings to speak up on items when he feels like he needs to. Thanks John for your service.

Mr. Tubbs then announced my son Jacob's resignation from teaching. He has decided to go to graduate school at Utah State to get his Phd, and one day become a college professor. This will take him at least five years to accomplish. Making this decision has been tough for him, and even though I hope and pray he can succeed in his goal it also saddens me. I think he taught for six years. Because of state budget cuts his pay didn't increase since the time he started and he didn't feel like he could support his family the way he needed to. When I first became a board member I thought I would have several grandkids in the district, but not anymore. He waited until the last minute to resign because he needs to sell his house to be able to afford rent at college and he hasn't been able to sell it yet. He decided to take a leap of faith and hopes he can figure out a path forward. 

We then had a discussion about meeting dates and place. I made the suggestion that we change the location to the middle school library. The auditorium is too big and hard to hear in. If there is an issue where we think we will have too many for the library we can move the meeting to the auditorium. After more discussion we decided to have it the same second Thursday at 8:00 in the middle school library. 

We then discussed our board training that Paul, Sid, April, and I went to in Idaho Falls the day before. Paul and April talked about what they learned from the training and then I brought up a few things. One item was we only need to review some policies one time not two like we have always done. This would save time at some of our meetings. I suggested Mr. Tubbs could determine which policies that he thinks only need one reading, and I think that's how we will proceed. We were also told we should try and keep all public comments to the end of the agenda, and not allow it very often before. We also need to state a few more details about some agenda items to better explain and define the topic. We were also told how important it is for our funding to get students to attend school especially through the first reporting period. The foundation is working on some ideas to award kids for attendance. 

We had some discussion about our strategic plan, but didn't get too far into it because we didn't have the plan given to us to review. I think we will get more into it soon. 

We then had a discussion about what is being called Differentiated Pay for our district employees for this next school year. It's kind of like the Pay For Performance program they had before last year. Mr. Tubbs gave us some information from other districts in how they are intending on implementing this program. Our district will have more input into how this money can be distributed than we did before. This money still has to be based somewhat on achievement. One area that will be hard to decide is, do we just give it to the teachers or certified staff, or do we share it with all the non certified staff too. I suggested if possible that we at least share it with the aides that work in the classrooms to help the teachers and students directly. I don't know if this can be divided that way and I don't think Sid knew either. Sid did mention that during some discussions with some of the teachers that they would like to just distribute it amongst themselves. I can understand this too because if all are included the money would be less than half the amount. It's just too bad we can't pay everyone more. We need to have this figured out and turned into the state by October 1st. I think the plan is to have a special board meeting at the end of August to establish our plan. This would give time for the management team and teachers to come up with a recommendation to the board. 

We then talked about the plans for the area between the high school and seminary building. Someone from the city was supposed to be at the meeting but no one was there. I think the preferred plan is to take out the trees, repave the road, put in new sidewalks and curbs, and plant some new trees on a grass berm. A waterline would have to be extended to that area. The suggestion was made that we could do this in phases over two or three years. I didn't agree with this plan. This would be funded by what's called the non student occupied fund. Money that we have to set aside each year for outside maintenance projects. We currently have several hundred thousand dollars in this fund. We are building new baseball backstops at the elementary and a few other projects that will spend some of this money. I feel like if we don't finish the parking and bus lane properly it won't look good or function like we intend it to. With the city working on the road that will connect to it, I think if possible we should tie it together to make it look good. Mr. Tubbs is going to get more cost estimates and get back with us. I hope this can move forward and get done when it needs to. 

We then went into patron input. Liz Killpack presented some great information about what the education foundation is doing. She has done some research into our district strategic plan and came up with ideas in how the foundation can support and enhance our district goals. One exciting project they are working on with the help of a grant, foundation and district funds is to redo the elementary library. They are going to put in new book shelves, paint murals on the walls, put in a new computer and other things. She talked about grants that the foundation would support and the criteria to apply for them. She brought up several other ideas for board consideration. More discussion will take place into how the foundation and district can work together. The board really needs to review and update our strategic plan, which would help this process. I'm am very exited to have support from this hard working group of individuals. 

We also had some concerns brought up to us about our lack of teachers in some grades making class sizes larger than they should be. I wish we could afford more teachers so this wasn't an issue, but without help from the state I have a hard time seeing how we can improve this situation now. 

That pretty much covers our meeting. We then went into executive session and discussed some private matters. 

There is another item I want to mention that should have been brought up at our board meeting. We are getting a big grant from a state fund to replace all the lights in the high school and Ag shop. The newer fixtures will not be replaced in the newest part of the high school, but all the old fixtures will be replaced too. This is the same fund that replaced all the lights in the elementary. Several months ago I was at a state dairy meeting talking about energy audits for dairies. I sat next to the man that oversaw the school grant program.  I mentioned how much we liked the new lights in our elementary. He said there might be some more funds available on a limited basis to do more for our school if we requested it. He gave me his card and told me to have our superintendent contact his office to apply. I gave it to him and he applied. It took a long time but I think just in the last week or two the district was awarded this grant. I don't know what the overall value of this is for our district, but the work in the elementary was worth about $120,000. The same company that worked on the elementary is now evaluating what needs done in the high school. I assume this will get done before school, but I'm not sure. But I do know it will sure brighten things up. 

I'm writhing this on my iPad laying on my hotel bed in Ypsilanti Michigan, a town close to Ann Arbor. I am at a Dairy Management meeting. We are going to tour the Dominos Pizza headquarters tomorrow. Technology is a great thing. As always if you have questions or concerns let me know. Thanks, Brian

June 12th Board Meeting and Other Thoughts

This was a very unusual board meeting for me. I was in Washington DC attending a dairy meeting. I had requested to participate by phone. The auditorium is not really set up for this purpose. I eventually was able to participate during some of the meeting over Casey's phone. I could only hear most of what the board said but not any of the audience, so my report will not be complete.

Julie Cederberg gave a report on the budget, which I didn't hear. I also had no information with me about what was being presented. I had hoped there would be some information on the web site to follow, but there wasn't. All I had was the meeting agenda. I knew the finances would be close to what it was last year, but not really any details. In past years we have had a work session to review the budget, this year we didn't. When I was able to get on the call they had already had the budget presented. When I received the agenda the Friday before the meeting and saw that there was no extra meetings on the agenda I requested we have a work session and an executive session to discuss budget questions and other matters that would potentially effect our budget. I received no response to my request. I made the comparison that we review each policy update twice before we approve them, I thought we should have more time to review the budget, since it is one of our most important duties as board members. During the meeting I was asked what questions I had, but like I said I had no information so it was hard to ask specific questions, other than what I just mentioned. Bottom line, the rest of the board voted to approve the budget and I opposed.

Since I got home Sunday I looked at the information that was sent to me the day of the board meeting, by mail. I have questions and requested more information. I received more details like I requested but have not had a chance to review them yet. I have no problems with how our budget was developed and admire how well our district stays within our budget without a supplemental levy. I will try and figure out more of the details. I won't get into all the details of what budget questions I have. Since the board adopted the budget as presented, that's how we will move forward for this coming school year.

We approved the teacher negotiated contract for the year. There was a substantial insurance increase that we covered out of our small general fund increase from the state. But most of the rest of the contract was about the same as last year. Some teachers will get small increases because of a small bump from the state.

Lisa Jolley and Becky Thane were approved as new teachers in the district. Lisa to teach P.E. and health and Becky to teach math.

There was a report about how the district is doing to comply with Common Core Standards. It was hard to follow over the phone, but we were assured we are doing what is necessary to comply.

They had a discussion about how to update our Strategic Plan, but Casey's phone died, so I didn't hear what was said about this. I know this is something we need to develop a lot more and hope this will happen soon. I called April and was on her phone for the rest of the meeting, but for some reason, April's didn't work as well, I pretty much listened to nothing until the approvals at the end of the meeting.

There was quite a bit of public comment, but I didn't hear any of it. I heard later there was a report from the Education Foundation. I look forward to their help supporting our district.

Over the last while I have had a lot of questions. The first part of the month I emailed Mr. Tubbs a long list of these questions. The next day he replied by email then when I had more questions he called me. I will address some of them here, so if anyone may have wondered the same things you will know what I found out.

I had questions about the teacher negotiations. Mostly the fact that the whole board wasn't informed about what was presented and what was agreed to. Mr. Tubbs sent me a long reply explaining the process and the agreement. I encouraged him to provide more timely information next year.

There is merit pay again this year, similar to last years Pay for Performance plan. We will have to decide how to distribute these funds by September. I think we will have more discretion with the process this year, but it still has to be partly based on student achievement. I think they will get the money in November.

I had asked what summer projects the district was planning on doing this year. I didn't get this question answered at the time but there was information in our board packet. The main project for the high school is the area between the high school and seminary building. The estimated cost is $20,000. They also plan on rebuilding the four baseball backstops at the elementary school for a cost of about $10,000. Other projects include more wood chips and paint in the elementary school playground, and some desks and chairs for a couple of classrooms for about $4,400.

I asked if we ever received a grant for our high school bleachers last year. I knew they had applied for a couple of grants but had never heard if we received any money. Well no we didn't get the grants. I guess they are hard to get.

I had heard we received some grant money from the Idaho Dairy Council, which I am involved with. The school received money for new milk coolers and money to help fund the school breakfast program for next year. We received this for promoting the importance of drinking milk at breakfast. We are the only school in Idaho that received this award. The Breakfast award came from the national processor organization called Milkpep. They do the milk mustache adds among other things. I am glad Amy Dye applied for these funds and that the dairy industry provided them to our district.

I asked about the drill team. I heard from my daughter that the current teacher didn't wish to teach the drill team anymore. I am not sure of the status with the teacher, but I know there is consideration to not have a competitive team. They might decide to have an intramural type team that would only perform at home games and not participate at any competitions. I am curious what the girls think of this idea.

I asked about the suggestion box idea that I brought up after our cottage meeting, to make suggestions to the district. I didn't get a response to this question and forgot to ask about it when I talked to Mr. Tubbs on the phone. I will have to follow up on this.

I asked about the reduction of federal title I funding from the federal government. I was told it might result in the loss of up to two more aides. I later found out that with savings in other areas that we won't have to make these cuts. I'm glad we don't have to cut aides. I think we already are short on aides.

I mentioned how I was disappointed with how few scholarships our graduates received. It seems to me like several years ago our students received a lot more. I also mentioned how my oldest daughter was valedictorian, and worked hard looking for not very typical scholarships. She received $1000 from Tylenol for example, and a very good four year scholarship from an old liberal southern senator. I think our students should be able to get more scholarships, but I don't know how. I was told that the school provides a lot of information about scholarships but there seems to be very little interest for the students and parents to pursue any. Only four of the 60 students applied for the Kiwanis Club scholarship. If anyone has ideas for how the district can improve this process, let me or the administration know.

I asked for more reporting on federal programs. Mr. Tubbs oversees this and I would like to hear more about it at a board meeting. I had read where Shelley had done this. Mr. Tubbs said he does provide some information about this, but I think it would be good for the district to hear more about it.

I had questions about the web site and trying to read the policies. He said that was going to be a summer project to fix these issues. Since I asked him this, the problems have been fixed and the policies are much easier to look up. Hopefully the web site will be updated and work a lot better this next school year.

I asked if the district had any idea of how many students that live within our district that don't attend our schools. I think this would be interesting to know, but I didn't receive a response to this question. Maybe its hard to find out. I think they would have a pretty good idea of how many attend other schools by just calling and asking them. We know who attends our schools that don't live in our district. I would also think there are ways to find out how many are home schooled. I think this would be good information to have. Maybe it would help us to find out why these students don't attend here and try to address their concerns if possible, and encourage them to come back to Firth. More students mean more funding.

I also asked about the idea of evaluating the non core programs in the district. This idea had come up during a discussion recently but no action has been taken to do this. The management team has done this, but I think the board should review each program. I think we need to determine the level of support for these programs and the costs. I am not saying I want any of our already limited programs cut, but if we don't have much participation, we need to try and promote them more, find ways to improve them, or maybe try and provide something else if possible that would draw more interest. I will need to suggest further discussions about this.

There were a few more questions that were answered in other ways and some I can't discuss here. Next month we will welcome Paul Jensen as our new school board member. I would like to thank John Monson for his many years of service on our school board. This is also when we have our board reorganization and set the date, and place for our board meetings. I would rather we had our meetings in either the high school or middle school library. We seldom have enough visitors for there not to be enough room in the library. I think if we anticipated a large crowd we could move to the auditorium. Having the meetings in the library we wouldn't have to deal with our problematic sound system, and we could see and hear those who desire to give public comment better. I don't know if the rest of the board will support this idea. Let me know if you have a strong opinion either way about this.

I hope this information is worthwhile. I debated if I should write a blog this month. As always if you have any comments or suggestions let me know. Thanks, Brian

May 9th School Board Meeting

This was a fairly good attended meeting. I think most of the interest was about the school calendar. There was a work meeting before the regular session where we went over the superintendent evaluation. Bart did most of the work coming up with the evaluation. The evaluation process will in part require the superintendent to come up with goals to meet the different areas of evaluation. Most areas will have three levels of performance. We will use this plan this year and see how it works, with possible revisions later. 

At the beginning we heard about some district accomplishments, starting with the high school. As many of you heard U.S. New magazine published a report on high achieving high schools. From what I understand most of the evaluation was based on the percent of students taking AP or Advanced Placement college level classes, and how well the students taking them performed on the AP tests. Firth ranked 4th in the state and 937th in the nation. Great job students and teachers.

Mr. Mecham then talked about the reading that has been done in the middle school. Reading had been identified as a weakness in some middle school students so they really worked on improving reading performance. The average student read 1150 pages this year. The extra reading has improved testing scores in many areas. Great job middle school students and teachers.

Not to be outdone the elementary through the accelerated reader program has read an amazing number of books and total words from September 1st to May 1st. The second through four grades read 5,519 books. Average number of books read was 33. Total words was 34,894,559. Average number of words per student was 212,121. Great job elementary students and teachers.

We then had a lengthy discussion about next years school calendar. Scott Jolley went over the results of a survey of calendar options that were posted on the district web site. Of the five options surveyed four of them received almost the same amount of votes. So it was left up to the board to come up with a compromise between the different options. There was mainly those who wanted to start school as late as possible, and didn't mind going after Memorial Day, and those who wanted to start earlier and didn't want to go after Memorial Day. There was concern brought up about how much actual learning that would be done after Memorial Day. Ms. Cook who teachers AP calculus said she needs as much time as possible early in the year to prepare the students for the final test. All the AP tests were taken last week, so going later and not starting early hurts them. We talked about going on three Fridays at the beginning of the year, but was advised against that because it might hurt our attendance too much. Well what we finally came up with is to start Monday August 19th. We had planned on having January 2nd off. But decided to start back on January 2nd and also go on Friday the 3rd, the only Friday school day of the year. School will end before Memorial Day. I made the motion to support this option and all the board approved.

During patron input we heard a report from Liz Killpack about reviving the education foundation. She has been doing a lot of research into what foundations can do and how best to function. They held a meeting the day before board meeting with about 25 in attendance. Liz was elected the president of the foundation. They plan on helping the district writing grants and trying to help fund some of the district needs. They will help the board in other areas were they can. She requested a board member sit in on their meetings which they plan on having the third Thursday each month and will report to the board their activities. She also requested the superintendent attend. I volunteered to attend when I can. I don't know very much about what a foundation can do and thought it would be a good way to learn and understand more how we can work together to improve the district. 

That is pretty much all that happened. I will be out of town during the next board meeting. I will be in Washington DC lobbing congress in my capacity as president of the Western States Dairy Trade Association. We will have a meeting and I and another Idaho dairymen will visit our Idaho congressional delegation, trying to get them to support immigration reform. The Idaho Dairy Association  will also be hosting a fund raiser for congressman Labrador. I wish it wasn't the same week as school board meeting where the board will hear the budget report. If you have any questions or concerns you would like me to hear about let me know on my school email. Thanks, Brian

April 11, 2013 Board Meeting

We had a work session starting at about 6:30 to discuss the superintendent evaluation for the future. We decided on a rough format to what we think should be in the evaluation. Rather than go through all the details, Bart and April volunteered to further develop the evaluation and present their ideas in the next meeting. 

We were given two drawings of ways to improve the parking area between the high school and the seminary building. The trees would be removed and a cement barrier would be put in possibly similar to the cement and brick barriers by the highway. Costs would have to be evaluated. The barrier would block off a bus loading area, which would greatly improve safety. There was also the idea to have the bus lane in front of the high school, but seemed less acceptable. I like the idea of having it between buildings. Some small trees might be planted too.

Mr. Tubbs gave us some information that will effect our school budget for next year. He said because of sequestration our federal funding that funds some of our aides will be reduced. It seems as if the government is trying to make political points wherever they can. When they know more details we will have to decide how to deal with the cuts. He also told us our employee insurance costs were going to go up 13.2%. Last years increase was surprisingly  small. I don't know the dollar impact to the district, but it will be substantial.  

In board meeting Mr.Tubbs read the retirement notifications of Kim Williams who has taught for 39 years, and Dianna Pearson who has taught for 29 years. They will be missed. Now the process will begin to find their replacements. 

We then had a discussion about the school calendar for next year. Because of when the holidays fall, it is difficult to have the year end before Memorial Day, and not start real early. Of the four options given to us the most popular option with the board was close to the same as this year. There has been a suggestion to add a couple more days to the calendar and reduce a few minutes each day. The preferred plan would be to start on Monday August 12th and end Thursday May 22nd. This would add two days and take away six minutes. Giving the teachers two more days to go through the lesson material is thought to be beneficial. After some discussion during public comment there was concern starting so early, but also support. There were other options discussed. I later requested calendar options that have school starting on August 19th ending the same day. To do this we would have to add the two days back, and have the same length of day as this year. It was suggested we could add back in a teacher's inservice day, the day after Labor Day. We decided against adding this day back last year because of attendance concerns during fair week. We then would have to add one more day or equivalent minutes, by either going a few more minutes each day or going to school on one Friday. I can live with these options but will not support going after Memorial Day. This will be further discussed at our next board meeting.

The senior class president then asked for approval for them to go on their senior sneak. They requested to travel to lagoon on May 22 returning that night. It sounded like they had things planned out well, and their trip was approved. 

I then went over items discussed at April and my cottage meeting. The parking area concerns which I already discussed. There was concern about the challenges the kindergarden and first grade teachers have in their classrooms when their usual aide is not able to be in their room assisting them when expected. I didn't think a substitute was brought in if an aide was sick, or excused for whatever reason, but I was told they do have substitutes. There are times when they aren't able to be there for other reasons. I suggested trying to get parents to assist if possible, if they knew ahead of time when these occasions would occur.

I talked about the need to have security cameras in the middle school and elementary.  Mr. Tubbs said the management team would evaluate the cost and prioritize the needs of the district. With such a tight budget, I think if funded it would have to come out of the student occupied fund. The same budget we used to fund the bleachers. We also need to update the strategic plan.

I mentioned there was still concern about the school dress code and cell phone use. I also mentioned the challenges of having our administrators spread so thin. The web site issues were discussed. Our school tech person has been very busy and getting the website updated has been a challenge. I also brought up the issue of having some middle school kids attending classes in the high school. On most occasions the students are coming and going at a little different times than the high school, so the administration didn't think there should be much direct interaction. I then mentioned the idea of having a suggestion box for patrons to provide input to the board. The idea was made that it would be good to put a box in each building. I think this would be worth a try to see how much and what kind of input we would receive. I will probably need to follow up on this idea.

We then went over a couple policy updates. We also approved a date change for our June board meeting, from Thursday the 13th, to Wednesday the 12th. There is a conflict for our business manager on the 13th. She has to attend a meeting that day, and June is when she presents the proposed budget for the year. 

I am currently at a meeting in Boise for a dairy board I'm on called the Western States Dairy Trade Association. This group consists of associations representing 12 western states that deals with issues like immigration, environmental, animal welfare, and many other similar issues. I have been on this board for several years, and at this meeting I was elected to be the group's president. I think I will be in Washington DC during our scheduled June school board meeting, lobbying our congressional delegation about issues such as pending immigration reform. I also will be attending a meeting with another national dairy group. 

I hope this information is of benefit. If you have any questions or concerns let me know. Thanks, Brian