Marta McAllister Posted December 19, 2006 Report Share Posted December 19, 2006 Proceedings of the Planning and Development Committee School District No. 2, Yellowstone County High School District No. 2, Yellowstone County Billings, Montana November 13, 2006 The Planning and Development Committee Meeting of School District No. 2, Yellowstone County, Montana, and the High School District, Yellowstone County, Montana was duly held at The Lincoln Center, 415 North 30th Street, Billings, Montana, Monday, November 13, 2006 at 5:30 p.m. Chairwoman Sandy Mossman presided. Members Present: Sandra Mossman, Chairwoman, Kathy Olson, Executive Director of Elementary Education, Scott Anderson, Executive Director of Secondary Education, Cheryl Malia-McCall, Margaret Aukshun, Al Bloomer, Todd Buchanan, Sara Nyquist, MD, Stan Jones, Jim Berry, Anne Barlow, Cathy Izatt , and Christy Fred. Trustees; Malcolm Goodrich and Dawn Achten. Also attending; Jack Copps, SD2 Superintendent, Rich Whitney, Director of Facilities Call to Order Approval of Minutes for April 10, 2006, May 8, 2006, and October 10, 2006 Margaret Aukshun motioned for approval of the prior minutes and Dawn Achten seconded. The committee approved unanimously. Overview of Information Packet Scott Anderson and Kathy Olson provided a document to the committee that would enable them to specify the details of services for each school. Kathy Olson reviewed the data for the elementary schools. The document provided a school map for each school, boundaries, the demographics, the feeder schools, classroom size, general information, space requirements for specialists/programs, how many volunteers the school would have and the state assessment proficient and advanced percentages. The general information outlined if the school would have free and reduced lunch students, LEP (Limited English Proficient), gifted students, and special education students. She went over the general fund for each school. The fund allows $125.00 for each student. The amount would cover items such as pencils, finger paint, computers, toner, crayons, paper, etc. Also, depending upon how many special education teachers are in their building they are allocated $350.00 per Special Education teacher for special education students. The OT/PT (Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy) provides for students that have an IEP. An IEP is an educational plan for children who receive special education. They could be possibly quite involved such as needing feeding tubes, defecators and other services that almost fit the medical model. She assessed the demographic data and the amount of grades per level in each school. The facilities identified services and programs that needed space requirements. There have been 3 major programs added in the last 3 years; Early Literacy Intervention, Read 180, and Language that requires a teacher and space. Some students are required to go from classroom to classroom working from a cart. She reviewed the school maps and boundaries. Some new developments are within boundaries but due to overcrowding must be bused elsewhere. Scott Anderson reviewed the middle schools and high schools. Scott Anderson detailed the general information for the schools. The template was the same as the elementary schools. The middle schools allocated $150.00 per student and high schools $165.00. Riverside and Senior have the most ESL (English as a Second Language) students. Space requirements in the middle school and high school may vary. The middle schools and high schools have after- school programs. Castle Rock has a Partnership with the Boys and Girls Club for an after-school program. HOT (Homework Opportunity Time) is a program in comparison to the high school Cafe programs that provide lunch, teacher and peer mentoring to help students with their homework. The Language, Read 180, Resource room are programs that require space. Senior High School has a Title site budget that offsets the general budget. This federal money basically goes to salaries to offset the teacher salary fund and goes to math and reading teachers. This money is allocated per free and reduced students and how many reside in poverty homes. Senior is a targeted school where the money has to be specifically targeted to fit within the needs of remediation or support. This money has constraints which must meet certain criteria and not to be given to the general population. There will be additional at-risk funds of $150,000 for each high school due to the Crossroads initiative. The majority of this will go to salaries and within the building programming. The Cafes are paid for out of the state funding at- risk monies including the Recovery program money. The Recovery program was for all three high school’s freshman that was provided last summer. The AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress-No Child Left Behind legislation program) in the high schools criteria is identified on the document. The district is waiting on the state results to identify whether or not the district passes the necessary criteria. The document provided the date of when each school was built for facility purposes. Kathy Olson discussed remedial programs in the schools provided by Title I. The Success Maker program-this is an intervention electronic math program that is currently piloted at Mckinley, Ponderosa, and Broadwater. Waterford- Additional program in Title schools for students K-3. It is a computer based program designed to help students with use of letters, sounds, putting words together etc. Reading Coach- There are 7 reading coaches in the district. They are paid half by Title I dollars and the other half paid by Title II staff development dollars. The reading coaches provide help to new teachers on how to teach reading. The non-title schools have a reading program called ERIC (Early Reading Intervention for K) delivered by schools tutor. The coaches are certified the reading/math tutors do not have to be certified. Read 180- This is an intermediate reading intervention program. ELI- Early Literacy Intervention program Kathy Olson stated how Orchard, is a Title I school which has 92% poverty rate, is a school where Title I money programs are making an impact. The school received a $25,000.00 federal award for meeting and exceeding their target. Chair Mossman briefed the committee on the remaining documents. She highlighted the recent forum with legislative candidates. The candidates were brought up to speed with what is going on in School District 2. There will be a meeting December 6th with successful candidates to continue to provide them information. In addition she stated there was information on the following: Overview of general enrollment Overview of the financial status Overview of the budget book- Sandy noted: projected fiscal picture anticipated expenditures are going to exceed revenue. Overview of the district assessment report- goes to all parents Overview of activities reductions Overview of curriculum instruction and its history Overview of the entire district facilities analysis that was required by the legislature. Overview of technology-current and possible future advancements Overview of history of school funding Rich Whitney recapped the Adequacy study. Rich Whitney shared handouts regarding Mr. Trautman. Study finds the facility should be compatible to program. There would be a systematic evaluation and a physical plan to support the education program. Operating efficiency, health and safety, accessibility from the ADA (American Disability Act) standpoint, and appearance are also factors. Key issues are educational adequacy and flexibility of the facility to accommodate students. Rich Whitney would provide references for Mr. Trautman. Genesis has done studies in several districts across the country and familiar with the problems and issues of a district of this size. This study is different from what the state has. The state follows what has been done at University of Montana and Montana State and only a physical plan analysis. The state has not visited Billings and what they know is only what Rich has provided them with. Chair Mossman commented that she has visited with public and was curious what the cost would be to update just Senior High. Al Bloomer questioned the total cost of the study. He said by looking at the proposal the study in its entirety would cost around $130,000. Rich stated this cost would be negotiable. Chair Mossman commented there are legislature allocated weatherization and deferred maintenance funds that could fund this study. The funds are close to $2,000,000.00. Superintendent Copps stated that in-house studies don’t have the credibility as out-of-state studies do. The community needs to be sure to invest its resources to insure schools remain the same quality as they already are. Also, the community should understand that the money that is received from the state for a new building is factored in. Example: a new elementary school built costing $7,000,000.00, would receive a refund from the state, a guaranteed tax base from Billings of 48%. $7,000,000.00 would now cost the district $3,800,000.00 to build a new school. He feels that we look at buildings not for 100 years but for 300 years. He would like us to plan now for the future. Margaret Aukshun voiced there have been studies in the past and nothing gets done in lieu of them. Instead of putting the money into a study, she would like to concentrate on the here and now. Her classroom is deficient in electrical support for her technology programs and the temperature varies drastically in the classroom which makes it difficult to teach. She would like to see immediate progress to up-date schools. Kristy Fred questioned why we don’t look at boundaries for overcrowding issues. Superintendent Copps commented that all the elementary schools are at or very near capacity at the present time. Lewis and Clark Middle School is the only school with room in it. Todd Buchanan commented that the district not having debt should not be an opportunity but a message from the community. It could possibly be because we don’t receive a return on our investment. The comment he has heard from the community is not to spend the money on a study. He feels our community is competent to make the decisions necessary to go forward. Trustee Goodrich noted that under the current budget cycle a bond measure wouldn’t be able to run until at least November 2008. He feels the study is a long range concept than a short range issue. He believes that Billings has the capacity of having a world class system. Malcolm feels the committee wants to be proactive rather than reactive. He claimed the district doesn’t have the money at hand to proceed with recommendations unless we can pass a mill levy. Trustee Goodrich made the following motion: The District to not proceed with the study as presented in its entirety unless it is funded in its entirety by private dollars. Trustee Achten seconded the motion There was discussion from the committee Those voting in favor are; Sandra Mossman, Kathy Olson, Scott Anderson, Cheryl Malia-McCall, Margaret Aukshun, Al Bloomer, Todd Buchanan, Sara Nyquist MD, Stan Jones, Jim Berry, Anne Barlow, Cathy Izatt, and Chisty Fred. Trustees; Malcolm Goodrich and Dawn Achten. Motion passed unanimously. Kristie Fred encouraged the committee to work hard at educating the community. Trustee Goodrich made the following motion: The District obtain private funding to procure an educational adequacy study for Senior High School alone to the extent deemed necessary to compliment the 20-year study plan. Todd Buchanan seconded the motion There was discussion from the committee There is an amendment to the motion to include: an adequacy study for all facilities built before 1940. Al Bloomer made the following motion; Al Bloomer moved to table the previous motion until the January meeting. Trustee Goodrich seconded the motion There was no discussion Those voting in favor are; Sandra Mossman, Kathy Olson, Scott Anderson, Cheryl Malia-McCall, Margaret Aukshun, Al Bloomer, Todd Buchanan, Sara Nyquist MD, Stan Jones, Jim Berry, Anne Barlow, Cathy Izatt, and Chisty Fred. Trustees; Malcolm Goodrich and Dawn Achten. Motion passed unanimously. Adequacy Study Discussion The Billings Heights Boundary Discussion was postponed to the next meeting agenda in January As there was no further discussion, the meeting adjourned at 7:30 ___________________ Sandra Mossman-Chair ____________________ Barb Gustafson-Recorder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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