USD 273 Board of Education Meeting Monday January 12TH

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Unified School District Number Two-Seven-Three

Board of Education Meeting

Monday, January twelfth, two thousand fifteen.

By Terry Bailey

The Board of Education for the Unified School District number two seven three conducted their monthly meeting at the Board Office on North Independence Avenue, Monday, January twelfth.

A representative from D-S Transportation of Kansas City was present to discuss the details of a proposed transportation contract for the district. Bids had been solicited by the Board for a new contract. The bid from D-S Transportation was the only bid received.

D-S will furnish virtually a new fleet of ten buses as well as a “Road Bus” for activities out of town. They will conduct all the training for the drivers and be responsibility for drug and alcohol testing, and so forth.

The Board voted seven to zero to approve a five year contract with D-S Transportation at a rate of three hundred thirty-six thousand dollars per year.

Tammy Roberts, School Nurse, updated the Board on upcoming healthy lifestyle activates she has planned. A new mini-challenge activity will begin on January twenty-sixth. This will involve all students of USD two seventy three as well as the staff. Roberts hopes that by having everyone involved a greater number of people will successfully participate in the program. Individual and class prizes are planned to spark the competitive fever in all who are involved.

Superintendent Jeff Travis told the Board that the progress on the new building addition at the Elementary School was slow. The weather has not been conducive to being out of doors and much of the work being completed is “behind-the-scenes” type of work that is vital at the outset but nobody notices that it is going on.

Travis updated the Board on the search for a Food Service Vendor for the District. The contract must be advertised in a newspaper at least as large as the Salina Journal for a specified number of days. There are intermediate steps to be completed leading up to a contract being offered to a vendor by March ninth and having that vendor begin serving food to the students by April first, two thousand fifteen.

“Sam Brownback, Kansas Governor, will present his State of the State address on Thursday January fifteenth at six thirty p.m.” said Travis. Kansas currently faces a shortfall of income of about two hundred eighty million dollars. This is of special concern to schools because slightly over fifty percent of the budget of the state of Kansas goes to finance K-Twelve and post-secondary education. Brownback has been under fire by his critics for his push to eliminate income taxes in Kansas.

“The teacher evaluation instruments that we have available to evaluate special education personnel are not adequate to measure the level of the educator’s competence,” said Karen Niemczyk, Director of the Beloit Special Education Coop in her statement the Board. The current state model for teacher evaluation, the KEEP model, doesn’t address the skills necessary for special education teachers, added Niemczyk. They use that evaluation instrument but have to add many comments and explanations that outline the teacher’s competence.

Niemczyk also talked with the Board about “unfunded mandates.” These are directives or orders issued by the State or Federal governments that tell the Special Ed programs to do this, that, or the other, but provide no funds to make it possible. Unfunded mandates have been a point of contention for many years.

Elementary Principal, Byron Marshall, reviewed the flurry of activity in December. The Book Fair was particularly successful and Librarian Roberta Meier was very appreciative of all the support for the library

A Geography Bee was held at the Elementary School on January ninth. Hunter Prochaska, a fifth grade student, was the first place winner and will represent Beloit at the state level competition. Owen Eilert, another fifth grader, took second place.

On January fourteenth the Beloit school-wide Spelling Bee will be conducted at one thirty p.m.

Beloit Junior Senior high school principal Darrell Moore informed the Board that the Concurrent Credit class offerings from Cloud County Community College at Beloit High have continued to deteriorate. Issues continue to arise and few are resolved. It appears the Beloit students are paying a higher for classes at Cloud County than students at other school pay to other community colleges. Reimbursement rates for Beloit teachers who teach those classes seem to be lower here than in other high schools. The Beloit students are required to pay technology fees for technology that is seldom, if ever, utilized. Moore shared that he has struggled to find a sympathetic ear at Cloud County to work on resolving these and other issues.

On January twentieth, Moore will be hosting a meeting of area administrators and school counselors to a presentation by Eric Burkes, president of the NCK Technical College. It may be possible for the Technical College to offer the same courses as Cloud County with fewer roadblocks to success.

Band instructor, Kristi Vetter, returned to on Monday January twelfth for a half day at the school. Vetter is recovering from a horse riding accident that fractured three vertebrae in her back. Injuries such as this are very critical and usually require a lengthy recovery time. Doug Twaddell substituted for Vetter in her absence and by all accounts, did a very commendable job.

Eleven Tech College Staff will spend time at the High School on January nineteenth. They will be participating in their school’s Community Service Day. They will give the bleachers a thorough cleaning in preparation for the Beloit Invitational Wrestling Tournament. Additionally they will painting the Ag Shop. This painting has been scheduled to be done in the summer but something comes up and it does not get done.

After a fifteen minute executive session, the Board voted to extend the contract of Superintendent Jeff Travis for one year which would keep him in place until the end of the two thousand seventeen school year.

Finally Moore reported that the Chromebooks have been a great improvement over the I Pads for student use. He requested permission to sell the Chromebooks that are now in the possession of the Senior students. A new Chromebook costs the school about two hundred fifty dollars. Moore suggested that the student be able to buy the Chromebooks in their possession for two hundred dollars to which they have already paid a thirty-five dollar technology fee. The students will get to keep their Chromebook and will not have to download all the information stored on them and the school will be able to buy a new set of Chromebooks. The Board gave their unanimous approval for Moore to implement that plan.

They adjourned.

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Beloit, KS 67420, USA