MONDAY NOVEMBER 9TH USD 273 BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING

USD #273 Board of Education

Monday, November 9, 2015

By Terry Bailey

The USD #273 Board of Education met Monday night, November 9, to conduct their regularly scheduled monthly meeting. In the absence of Board President Jason Johnson, board member Mike Riemann conducted the meeting.

Colson Riemann, Beloit Jr. Sr. High Student Council president, provided an update to the Board regarding the recent activities of the Student Council. The Student Council: sponsored a pumpkin decorating contest expecting 10 or 12 entries but ended up with over 30 decorated pumpkins, volunteered for a week’s duty delivering Meals on Wheels, conducted a blood drive at the High School and collected 18 pints of blood, plan to deliver gifts for the annual Angel Tree program, will man the Isle of Lights volunteer booth on December 20^th, and will sponsor a “Decorate the Halls” event at Beloit High after Thanksgiving.

Darcy Offutt reported on the activities of the Site Council. They are currently revising their by-laws. The group is also examining the possibility of proposing an Elementary School Honor Roll for the upper grades.

Heather File gave the Board a rundown on the PTO’s efforts. She wanted to thank Mr. Dean and Mr. Travis for their help getting the new soccer goals. They are regulation size making them considerably larger than the previous goals. The Boxtop fundraiser netted $820 with two more activities planned during the school year. Grandparents Day was conducted in September with 350 grandparents taking part in the activity. BES T-shirts are being sold. The annual all school fundraising program raised $16,300. The Christmas movie activity is being planned at the Solomon Valley Cinema. Polar Express will be the movie shown. Next Monday night November 16^th is the Pizza Hut fundraiser. File encouraged everybody to eat out at the Pizza Hut that night and help raise money.

In his report Superintendent Jeff Travis said that once 80 lockers are installed in the new gym addition, the work will be virtually completed. An upcoming basketball game is scheduled in the new gym.

An activity of significant importance is the Beloit Elementary School’s Open House that will be held on November 24^th. They will be honoring the Elementary School’s 60^th anniversary. The school was dedicated in a special ceremony on November 8, 1955. A program from that celebration has been located. It details all the activities of that dedication ceremony. The Superintendent of Schools in 1955 was John S. Morrel and the Board President was Maurice McDonald. William L. Brush was the Elementary Principal.

A program including introduction of the School Board, introduction of the Builders of the new addition, presentations by the 5^th and 6^th grade orchestras, a vocal performance by the 3^rd grad students and other activities are planned.

Karen Niemczyk, Director of the Beloit Special Education Coop, reviewed recent litigation issues relevant to Special Education laws. She said the laws are laws but the Courts often interpret them differently. She said these are the reasons they have to be very careful with the writing of Individual Education Plans for students in the program.

Brady Dean, Executive Director for the Mitchell County Partnership for Children, reported that Kelly Shamburg has been hired as the administrative assistant replacing Tiffany Schroder who left to become the USD #273 treasurer. Kelly is a Beloit native and they look forward to having her work with the program.

Leah Johnson has been hired as a teacher at the Early Learning Center. Leah worked for a number of years as a science teacher at Beloit Jr. Sr. High and operated a private daycare for several years.

The literacy and math assessment for children in the Learning Center have been completed. The children tested have no previous formal education and were participating in their first testing.

In the literacy category 4% of the students met the standard, 31% almost met the standard, and 65% were below the standard.

In the math category 9% met the standard, 63% almost met the standard and 27% were below the standard.

In his report for the Elementary School, Dean said:

Parent/Teacher conferences were held on October 22^nd. 410 families attended which was 92% of the families.

The International String Trio that performed for the Beloit Area Concert Association gave a 45 minute string concert at the Elementary School.

The results have been received for the 2015 Kansas State Assessments administered last spring. The results:

English/Language Arts – 88% of BES students scored at or above grade level. The State average was 79%.

Math – 87% of BES students scored at or above grade level. The State average was 77%.

The results were very promising.

Mr. Dean also gave a report for the absent Casey Seyfert, High School principal.

Parent/teacher conferences were held at the high school. 63% of the parents attended.

The FFA attended the National Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. Twelve students participated with Mr. Callaway and Mr. Vetter accompanying the group as sponsors. This is twice the number of students who attended last year.

All freshmen and sophomore students took the ACT Aspire test last week.

The band and orchestra took students to the KMEA activity this past weekend in Hays. They will also participate in the Western Kansas Orchestra Festival in Great Bend on November 20^th.

The play Harvey will begin on Thursday, November 12^th. Performances will be on Thursday and Saturday at 7:00 pm and on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 pm.

Fall sports have concluded for the junior and senior high schools and winter sports have started for the junior high schools. The high school girls volleyball teamed ended a very successful season with the school’s first ever appearance in the State Volleyball Tournament in Emporia with a fourth place finish.

The Board approved two new policies as suggested by the latest audit. An anti-fraud policy and a credit card policy were unanimously approved.

End of agenda. Adjournment

Other News

Beloit, KS 67420, USA