By Clay Schuldt
Special for the Argus
With the resignation of Superintendent Bruce Thomas effective the end of December, the District #299 Board of Education moved to ratify a contract with Marcia Love to serve as the interim superintendent for the remainder of the 2011-2012 school year.
Marcia Love
Love has previously served as a superintendent in Plainview as well as served as teacher and principal in the Harmony, Mable-Canton and Preston school districts. Love lives outside of Harmony and is a long time resident of Fillmore County.
During the Dec. 19 meeting, the board accepted the recommendation to hire Love who will now serve as superintendent until the permanent replacement takes over in July 2012.
Thomas originally came to the district as an interim superintendent, but stayed on for two years. Thomas received thanks from the entire board, with board member Kelly McGraw saying “Thanks for being patient with us.”
The search for a new superintendent has evolved to include the search for a new elementary principal to replace Connie Hesse who tendered her resignation earlier this month. Her resignation was accepted during the Dec. 19 meeting. The superintendent search committee concluded that the district could not afford to hire two separate individuals and is seeking one person to fill both the principal and superintendent positions.
School audit
The board approved the school audit report as presented by the Larson Allen Weishair & Compnany. The report highlighted that the school’s general fund balance increased by $219,671, while the staff development restricted fund balance decreased by $16,651.
The district enrollment declined by 25 students from the previous year and the district cut $255,025 from the 2009-2010 budget to account for this projected decline in revenue.
The unassigned fund balance increased, bring the fund balance to $311,047. The district policy is to maintain an eight percent reserve in the general fund balance, but the school currently has a four percent reserve. This will require the district to make significant reductions or increase enrollment to return to eight percent. In general it was reported that the school was doing better, but is not out of the woods yet as state funding has not been good for K-12 classes.
Personnel
The resignation of Roger Knutson as the junior high baseball coach was accepted by the board effective immediately. Next the board ratified a contract for Julia Benson to work as a part-time elementary/middle/high school ESL teacher. The teacher and support staff seniority lists were approved. The non-bargaining administrative contracts for the 2011-2012 school year was approved and is to be split over the 2012 and 2013 school year.
Reductions in programs?
The board passed a unanimous vote to approve a resolution directing the administration to make recommendations for reductions in programs and positions. This will allow the administration to determine which teachers’ contract will be terminated and which programs should be discontinued to cut cost in light of a decline in enrollment.
Following this vote the board approved a resolution to place Julie Stafslien on layoff on basis of seniority.
Classroom grading policy
The board returned to the discussion of a classroom grading policy. The issue came up after the board was informed of inconsistencies in high school teacher grading scales. Between two teachers there is a 20 percent point difference for the same letter grade.
The board intended to pass a motion to keep the grading scales among the departments consistent within a few points. The concern being that two students doing the same amount of work will receive different letter grades due to a strict or lenient teacher grading scale. Board members stated they wanted to avoid having parents remove students from a teacher’s class to avoid a stricter grading scale.
Board Chair Michelle Werner was not comfortable with the board making this type of school policy saying, “I would rather leave it in the superintendent’s hands.” Board member McGraw, who was in favor of the policy, admitted the board should probably not be making this type of policy “in an ideal world”.
Current superintendent Thomas offered his opinion that this type of decision was beyond the board’s reach and felt the administration should talk it over with the teaching staff as a whole.
On this advice the board changed the motion to have administration seek consistent policy. The board specified that if the whole high school could not have a consistent grading policy, that at least the individual departments (math, English, science, etc.) should be consistent. The administration plans to set up a meeting with a group of teaching staff and Principal Paul DeMorett to discuss grading procedures.
Principal reports
Principal DeMorett announced that the Wednesday after school technology sessions have been going well and are a good opportunity to work on staff development.
Interim Elementary Principal Jane Morken also praised the technology sessions and informed the board about adding three hours of mental health sessions dealing with issues of student anxiety and trauma, as well as seminars on writing to better instruct students to be effective readers.
Morken explained that these optional teacher sessions will allow staff to receive Continued Education Units (CEU) which are required for recertification.
The Elementary School Student Council raised $130 which was used to purchase gifts for the Care and Share program.
Morken announced a schedule change. Elementary teacher conferences scheduled for Feb. 7 have been moved to Thursday Feb. 9.
Superintendent’s report
Thomas began his last report to the board by addressing a long term issue, asking: “How do we deliver instructions to schools when we have multiple agencies and multiple organizations participating?”
Thomas went on to suggest the school find ways that incorporates classroom activities with online activities. Thomas felt that simple classroom instruction was not enough and the school must continue looking at technology as an educational tool.
Thomas recommended that the board have open dialogue with the public about how to use the money from the One Day Bond voted on last month. “We have a responsibility to be a good fiscal steward of those monies and that we have a responsibility to be transparent in how we spend those dollars.” Thomas suggested creating a list of goals the district wanted to achieve and have open discussions about the items on the list to find what is necessary. In addition Thomas commented that it would be in the districts best interest to look into another One Day Bond Sale. Thomas closed his report by saying, “In all sincerity, it has been a pleasure working with you.”
Miscellaneous
The board is looking into changing the wording on the Highway 44 sign near the school crossing. The sign currently states that drivers slow to 30 mph when students are present. This has become difficult to enforce as drivers cannot always identify students from adult pedestrians. The board wishes to change the sign to read: slow when lights are flashing to remove any confusion as to when the speed limit is 30 mph. The hope is to have the sign changed during the Highway 44 construction.
The board moved to hold an organizational school board meeting on Jan. 3 at 5 p.m. in the middle/high school media center.
The board voted to adopt the final levy certification for 2012 in the amount of $2,464,218.91.
An agreement with Hiawatha Valley Mental Health Center was adopted by the board. The board commented that this agreement was identical to the agreement last year.
