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School Board Meeting Briefs
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BOARD OF EDUCATION
Feb 19, 2007 Regular Meeting
The meeting was called to order at 7:06 PM by President Patchett.
Board members present: Brown, Freebairn, Hutchinson, Means, Patchett, Young
Absent: Kile
Others present: Superintendent Acklin, Principal Hettmansberger, Doug Evans, Ginger Velazquez, Amy Kinnett, Ben Harbaugh, Beth Harbaugh, Austin Wallace, David Albin, Andrew Albin, Dana Hales, Ben Carroll, Ivan Catron, Melissa Catron, Bob Catron, Shelly Wood, Mason Wood, Nolan Brooks, Russ Brooks, Georgia Horsley, Matt Harbaugh, Ben Carroll, Terry Sullivan, Diana Melton, Barb Board
President Patchett welcomed everyone to the meeting.
Board approved the following Consent Agenda items:
Treasurer’s Report
Activity Report
Resignation of personnel: Tracy Flesner, Bus Driver; Theresa Sisk, Golf Coach
Employment of personnel: Stephanie Fox, LD Resource Teacher
Authorized the Superintendent to let fuel bids for July 2007 – June 2008
Approved final reading of school board policies:
2:10 School Board – School District Governance
2:110 School Board – Qualifications, Term, and Duties of Board Officers
2:130 School Board – Board-Superintendent Relationship
2:140 School Board – Communications To and From the Board
2:150 School Board – Committees
2:200 School Board – Types of School Board Meetings
2:220 School Board – School Board Meeting Procedure
2:240 School Board – Board Policy Development
3:10 General School Administration – Goals and Objectives
Board approved the regular minutes of the January 16, 2007 meeting.
Board approved the payment of bills as presented.
Correspondence
Thank you card for flowers from Linda Lawson.
Email was received from Crestwood Superintendent Loraine Bailey who had brought a group of teachers to see the classrooms updated with the E2T2 grant. After visiting Shiloh Elementary they then visited Bloomington schools. When comparing what they saw at Shiloh and at Bloomington her comment was that Shiloh has a much more complete setup and vision. It was obvious how much difference focused professional development makes. If our team learning anything it is that to success it is important to pick the right teachers to start with and then they need enough professional development. The email also contained Kudos from Glenda Bequette, from ISBE, noting that while there may be a point that you will no longer want teachers traipsing through your classrooms to see all of the innovative and creative ways that you are using technology but know that your vision and enthusiasm is spreading far and wide. Having visited your classrooms I know that you are giving more than 200% of your time and talents to the TECH-IL project..
Audience to Visitors
Amy Kinnett: Voiced her concerns of a Newman bus route.
David Albin Is pleased to hear about the IT Departments success. Board is doing exactly what should be done with taxpayer dollars in that regard but feels law enforcement should deal with any drug problems. School is not here to enforce a drug policy and this should all be turned over to law enforcement. Current drug policy is scaring kids from participating in school activities. Primary mission of the school is to provide an environment that is good for education. If participating in a co-op all students should be under the same rules.
Superintendent Acklin responded that local tax money is not used for drug testing. This is funded through federal money and the schools are given very specific parameters as to how that money may be spent.
As to the co-op situation he had tried to get the athletic codes in line with Heritage but they are not interesting in aligning the code or the drug policy. They want to deal with their students and let us deal with ours.
The school district can’t turn students over to authorities for testing positive on a test. The school can exclude them from school activities. President Patchett commented that school drug testing results can’t be used as evidence in court.
Paul Freebairn asked if we stopped drug testing would we lose any money. Superintendents Acklin responded that no, we wouldn’t.
Mike Means commented that we need to look carefully at this issue and the Board needs to be sure they make the right choice.
Doug Evans questioned if the only students getting punished were athletes. President Patchett replied that no, any students testing positive is punished.
Russ Brooks Concerned that students opting out of being tested lose any opportunity to participate in any extra school activities and that is an important part of high school. Strongly feels that drug testing is wrong. Some students may be scared of testing even if they don’t use any drugs or alcohol. The drug issue is a parenting issue. Instead of being suspended from the team if testing positive make drug education mandatory. What we’re gaining from the policy is no where close to what we’re losing.
Shelly Wood Asked if we could use money to educate kids? Response from administration was yes, absolutely, and we are doing so.
Administrative Reports
Principal - Mr. Hettmansberger:
Congratulations to Shiloh Elementary Students of the Month
Third grade: Daelynn Miller, Noah Allen
Fourth grade: Diamond Miller, Bailey Cooper, Cole Evans
Fifth grade: Haylee Buckellew, Kaila Redmon-Lewis
Sixth grade: Devon Justus, Justin Ray
Congratulations to Ivan Catron – January Senior of the MonthWinterfest activities went pretty smooth. He had never seen anything like it before. No one got out of hand and it was a big success.
Winterfest Court
Freshman Attendants Sophomore Attendant Junior Attendants
Darci Winkler Cassandra Williams Amanda Graves
Shane Bailey Escort Kevin Carrington Omar Alhelwani
Queen Candidates King Candidates King and Queen
Kayla Snyder Alex Castillo Nolan Brooks
Rebecca Joines Ben Harbaugh Rebecca Joines
Brittany Brown Nolan Brooks
Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) group is being formed. The group will meet once each month during lunch time. Jason Conn is supervising the group.
AYP was met for all schools. We received our statistics last week. All three schools meet with flying colors. Students and staff did a fine job of meeting the standards.
Had been questioned by a parent if a jr. high student could receive high school credit while in jr. high for taking electives through the Illinois Virtual High School.
Had received notice from the yearbook company recognizing last year’s yearbook editors, Robert Murphy, and Brianna Kincaid on their work.
Hannah Hawkins has advanced in the three point shoot-out and will now go to Illinois State Redbird Arena for the next round.
Commended the high school girl’s basketball team on a very good season.
Superintendent – Mr. Acklin
Certified Staff Re-Alignment: Due to the continual decrease in Title I funding we plan to realign some certified staff. Administration has talked with everyone affected by the changes and all are on board and excited about doing something different.
Educational Support Personnel RIF’s: Possibility of RIFing at least one aide this year. This must be done by the March board meeting. An alternative would be to keep all current aides and see what our needs will be at the start of the next school year. If, at the beginning of the year, we don’t have the need for all staff we would give the employee(s) with the least seniority a 30 day notice and release them at that time. The affected aide has been made aware of the situation.
Non-union Staff Evaluations: Evaluations of B. Board, M. Patrick, and Mr. Hettmansberger are complete with those of D. Wagoner and T. Sullivan to be included in next months board packet. Salary recommendations for these employees will be made after the contract for union personnel has been finalized.
FY07 School Library Per Capita Grant: Notice award in the amount of $237.81 has been received.
Publicly recognized the District’s custodial staff: Dick Wagoner, Red Grissom, Glen Hawkins, Jayme Dillon, and Phil Witt for their excellent work clearing snow during the recent bad weather.
Announcements and Discussion
Drug Policy 7:240 Students – Conduct Code for Participants in Extracurricular Activities: Shiloh School Nurse Georgia Horsley discussed the history of the policy, why it was implemented, how it works, and the positives of the policy. Only have 12-14 high school students who have “opted out” and have not returned signed drug testing permission forms. A counselor from the Human Resources Center meets with students weekly who have tested positive. It takes about a week to get testing results. If a test is positive it is sent to another lab for confirmation.
There were no hard numbers available of testing comparisons since the policy was implemented. Principal Hettmansberger distributed the results of an anonymous survey conducted by “I Sing the Body Electric.”
He had polled the teachers of what is being done in the district classrooms to prevent alcohol, drug, and tobacco use:
CAMA Teens are staring a program of mentoring third grade students and will follow them into 4th grade next year. They will meet once a week in a big brother/big sister type of program in a longitudinal type of study.
A group from HRC taught a Life Skills class to fourth grade students where they meet with students once a week for several weeks.
The 5th grade teachers have an anti-drug curriculum similar to the DARE program.
7th grade students from all Edgar County schools will be attending a CAMA (Citizen’s Against Meth Abuse) conference in Paris. The conference will include nationally known presenters.
Health classes hit drug and alcohol abuse issues hard.
SADD and CAMA Teens are an extra-curricular activity that meets during lunch and homeroom. They sponsor Red Ribbon Week activities.
Robert Pickle, a former hard core meth addict, spoke the all high school students at a very powerful assembly program.
We are doing a lot of activities but we can never do enough. We are doing as much as our small rural school can do at this time. Talks frequently to other schools about this issue and what they are doing.
Feels the policy needs to be changed but we definitely need to have a drug policy. He was looking for a school with a drug policy when he became a principal.
Georgia Horsley noted that we are not just waiting and trying to catch someone with the drug testing. There have been success stories as a result of a student testing positive.
Principal Hettmansberger said that he has high expectations of himself as well as the students. Extra-curricular activities are privileges that a school does not have to provide.
In discussing the original reason for the drug policy being implemented, Brown said that one of the reasons he was interested in creating a drug policy was finding drugs in the school. This had been discussed among the administration and the school board. This was also a way to give students the power to say no to peer pressure.
Superintendent Acklin asked the Board members to take the handouts home, read them and digest the information and it will be discussed more at the next meeting. The administration will look into using oral swabs for testing and maybe look at the number of students being testing each time.Each board member was given time to voice their thoughts:
Brown One of the reasons the policy was passed was to give students a better reason to say no. He thought it was a good idea at the time. We need to have some type of policy but feels by drug testing we are telling students that we expect them to take drugs. Current testing procedure desensitizes students to what is going on. We have a lot of students who are drinking and it’s a big problem in our school. He sees no evidence that testing is helping the students. Thinks we should listen to the kids telling us it isn’t working.
Freebairn The number one problem of young people in the country is binge drinking and that starts in high school or even earlier. Most of what he heard from students who spoke at the last meeting was the time issue of being taken from class. An oral swab is a way to cop out and not make a decision to change the policy. Has never felt the procedure was completely random.
Young Is interested in the oral swab as a less invasive procedure and less time consuming. Feels that because of lower enrollment we need to adjust the number of students to be tested each year. If only 12-14 are opting out of drug testing then something else must be keeping them from participating in activities. As a critical care nurse she has seen way more people hospitalized from the results of nicotine then anything else.
Hutchinson Was on the board right after the policy was implemented. Believes children should be governed by their parents but unfortunately the high poverty rate in our district brings with it many drug and alcohol problems. Would like to see more time by the policy committee looking carefully at this policy. Would like to put it to the policy committee to come to a middle ground.
Means If the policy is working and we can prove it is working he is all for it. May be getting a false sense of security. The district can do more to educate the students. He doesn’t want anyone at the meeting to feel they are being ignored.
Patchett Was surprised to hear anyone say that the policy isn’t working. Some students who have tested positive and they have been helped by that positive test so it is working. Feels that society is going the wrong way and unfortunately all parents don’t take responsibility for their children. Has heard much talk about the fear of taking the test but no one was concerned about testing accuracy. As for the cost it is cheaper for the schools to handle this then the police. A positive test with police involvement will give the student a record that will be with them forever.
The Board took a break at 9:27 PM and reconvened at 9:35 PM.
FY08 School Calendar: The proposed calendar is much like the current year’s calendar with two additional days at Christmas, three fewer ½ days, teacher institute on August 20, with students first day of August 21. If no emergency days are used we would be out May 28. Discussion of being out on President’s Day instead of Lincoln’s Birthday.
FY08 Fee Schedule: Suggested change that if student fees are not paid by September 15 each school year, waived, or a Payment Plan approved by the Superintendent the student will not be permitted to attend or participate in any extra-curricular/privileged activities, including, but not limited to: driving to and from school, sports, cheerleading, club field trips, dances, promotion or graduation exercises, etc. All families with unpaid fees who do not have an approved Payment Plan or fail to make scheduled plan payments will be forwarded to a collection agency.
At this time no increase in fees was proposed. Discussion of adding a charge for AR online student access in order to continue the program which has been funded this year by donations and fund raising initiated by Mr. Roskovensky.
First reading of the following school board policies occurred:
3:40 General School Administration – Superintendent
4:170 Operational Services – Safety
6:250 Instruction – Community Resource Persons and Volunteers
6:340 Instruction – Student Testing and Assessment Program
8:30 Community Relations – Visitors To and Conduct On School Property
8:60 Community Relations – Exclusive Bargaining Representative Agent – Deleted Policy
Sharing of Driver Education with Chrisman: Proposal is for Mr. Hixson to have one class period per day, 1st period, at Shiloh. This will get 75-85% of the students driven. Mr. Conn and Mr. Miller will do driving before school, during their plan period, and/or after school to catch the others. Each district will have their own vehicle with the total cost being the about the same as this school year.
Co-op High School: We are working on sending out the requested feasibility study materials with the deadline being the end of February.
Reduction in Force of Education Support Personnel: Administration has talked with the support person involved of what the board is looking at doing so that individual can make their decision knowing what is happening.
Corn Burning Furnace Update: Freebairn said that he needs a definite decision from the board if they want to pursue the engineer study. With the price of corn the economics just aren’t there. This is to be included as an action item on the March agenda.
Other: Looking into replacing the current FM radios, most of which don’t work properly, with new radios for the bus drivers and custodians instead of using cell phones.
Hutchinson relayed a request from Renee Henry for the board to pass a resolution at the March meeting to show their support of the Newman Library referendum. Patchett feels this is a good needed service but not school related. Superintendent Acklin wants what is best for the kids and feels the school should support it. Means agreed that the school should support it. Brown did not voice support of the referendum.
Hutchinson said that if anyone wanted to see the results of the great work Ms. McClain is doing they should see the last page of the Newman Independent each week. They can see the work her students are doing and see what she’s accomplishing as a teacher.
Board meeting adjourned at 10:26 PM.
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