A Few Highlights from the Board Meeting

January marks the period where we are involved in a considerable amount of planning and budgeting for the next school year.  One area of focus for us right now includes how the district's Modified Supplement Aid for At-Risk will be used.  The board took action to approve the service plan for the 2020-2021 school year last night. This includes continuing to support the extended school year camps at the JK-8 grade levels, the district's home school liaisons, the alternative high school program (Flex Education), and funds to expand Flex Education services to support middle school students.  Some funding was also reserved to partially fund a school resource officer position.  The district is working with the City of Shenandoah and Police Department to determine how this might work and the amount of funding necessary for the position to be added.  It will require the use of some money from the general fund to add the School Resource Officer position.

Writing has increasingly become an essential part of the curriculum and is also included in the ISASP testing required by the State.  The administrative team and Instructional coaches have investigated Write to Learn, a software that can be used to strengthen writing instruction and generate instant feedback for students. Our instructional coaches presented about this software at the board meeting this week. I was very pleased the purchase was approved. There are TLC funds that are available to pay for this expense.

Several months ago, the district was approached about passing a School Classification Equity Resolution. It is a resolution that asks the IAHSAA and IHSGAU to reconsider how schools are classified for athletic participation.  Adam Van Der Vliet, Darrin Bouray, and I were able to attend a session at the IASB convention about this and felt that it was an appropriate conversation for our district to consider.  After some discussion with the high school administration and coaches, the general consensus was to move forward to support the resolution. We believe it is in the best interest of our student-athletes and programs. The Board formally passed the resolution on Monday evening.  It will be interesting to see the impact of this decision long term. 

The consent agenda and all other action items were approved.  This includes some new staff members. Rob Addy will be joining our staff as the Director of Maintenance and Operations, and Trent Blackman will be driving van routes for us. It is also good to see Gaylen "Kim" Terry rejoin our staff part-time.