School board 11-16-2011 notes

Notes from the school board meeting on November 16, 2011. These are my notes are not the official notes of the school district. They do not reflect the opinions, thoughts or attitudes of any other school board member or the superintendent. Jeff Aho was out with an excused absence, all other board members were in attendance.

First item was the MESD accountability report. Resolution services to the Corbett school district came to $452,799, fee for service $3,308 and value-added services at no cost to Corbett $53,635. Thirty-three students received services for special education related services, fourteen birth to five years children received early intervention/early childhood value-added services, eight students received special education evaluation services, there were four students enrolled in Alpha high school and one in Arata Creek. Seventy-four sixth grade students and one student leader went to Outdoor school.

Mark Hyzer went over the keynote speech from Governor Kitzhaber at the OSBA conference. Annette Calcagno and Victoria Purvine each attended two days of the four day conference.

Review of correspondence to the board. (Letters from Robert R. Dunton and the CCS teachers on leave of absence from CSD attached. Response from Victoria Purvine also attached. Page 1 and page 2 attachments are the pages from the CCS teachers. Jeff Aho had a statement read but I do not have a copy of that statement.)

Statement of board consensus passed 6-0.
Resolution 69.11-11: Resolved that the Corbett School Board recognizes the significant contribution the Corbett Charter School brings to the overall welfare of the Corbett School community, and the current Corbett School Board supports a fair, unbiased and legal review of the Charter School Contract in 2014 based on legally recognized standards.

Bob Irvine from PARC gave an information presentation on the possible grants available to apply for to put towards the Springdale school.

Principal reports:
DeeDee Hanes thanked MESD for their support of the Special Education program.
Kristin Wold: elementary teacher: gave a report on the classroom. The students are studying the original people of the Gorge and have done projects based on their ability level. Basket weaving, making beads to trade, kiln dried face masks, whistling sticks and a log house that the children enjoying using to play Chinooks. She has had great parental help.

Lori Luna: Things are going well. Story-telling night was very successful and the students will be continuing with their studies of Ancient Civilizations. She went to a Common core standards conference and feel we are in pretty good shape for the switch over.

Phil Pearson: The main difference will be right now the OAKS test can be given three times to record scores. With CCS the test is only given once for assessment, but progress tests will be done. The tests will be done on computer, which will be different. Algebra is being pushed to the eighth grade level, with the fourth year in HS being calculus. We should find ourselves in very good shape. He is seeing small acts of courage from the students everywhere! Very happy to see this.

Cascade Locks redistricting presentation: Connie Kennedy and George Fisher
Please consider merging Cascade Locks with Corbett. The Hood River district has closed the doors on the HS and MS and are planning on busing the sixth graders to Hood River next year. This is being done due to declining student enrollment and economic conditions.
Hood River has not done alternatives to keep Cascade Locks open. They could have changed boundary lines instead of taking the students to overcrowded Hood River classrooms. They could have allowed a Magnet school to open. They could have located Dos Mundos in Cascade Locks instead of adding modulars to Westside Elementary, making room for 200 students when Cascade Locks had space for 400.

Some in Cascade Locks see Corbett as their rich cousin and believe they can operate as a benefit to Corbett. Cascade Locks has space, you can bus the middle school students up there when the time comes to upgrade the middle school. They receive more money per student than Corbett does due to their rural designation and that money would come to Corbett. The Nestle water bottling company is considering coming into Cascade Locks and that would bring money into the district.

There are currently 60 students in Cascade Locks, K-6. The number of 7-12 students is unknown, maybe 50. The plan to fill the rest of the spaces would be to have students come in from Reynolds and Gresham/Barlow, having parents bring them in just like they are currently doing in Corbett.

You assume your own debt up to the time of the merger, then the two districts would build debt together. So, bonds and levies needed to run the Cascade Locks school would be voted on and incurred by Corbett residence, and vice-versa.

Ms. Kennedy would like have this process started by February 1, 2012.

Public Comments:
Dorothy Hayden: Has worked with CSD for the last 26 years and very proud of everything accomplished over the last ten years. Now, two board members are tearing the school apart. There is only a very tiny amount of people who are unhappy with the school and she hears that the board members are bad-mouthing the school everywhere she goes. Big Bears, CCM, the post office. Dr. Trani deserves an apology for everything he is going through.

Janet Ruddell: Excited about the Cascade Locks idea of merging with Corbett. Might be available the first of the year instead of waiting for Springdale. Could be a back up plan too if Springdale doesn’t work out.

Financial report: We are going to reduce the time on the financial report. Hand out single page and ask if there are any questions. The four page report is available on the website.

Tabled budget committee vacancy replacement until next meeting. Two out of four had previous commitments.

Resolved to move forward with the recommendations of PARC for grant application. No more than $8,052 for grant applications for the four earmarked as most logical. Could be less if the letter of interest comes back letting us know we don’t meet the requirements. 6-0

Consent agenda: OFLA for Tim Cooper approved. OSBA resolutions to override membership-approved legislative policies, and amend OSBA constitution to allow consecutive terms for Secretary.

Dr. Trani’s timeline vision for Springdale school
The district needs to let the other districts know by 3/1 what grades they can accept, and how many.
Inform other districts who has been accepted by 4/1.
Once you open the district you are obligated to take the students. We can stretch the acceptance date to 4/15 so we can have a better idea of Springdale will be open in time.
We will hold a lottery for those currently accepted in on the District side to cut back on paperwork as long as the student wants to stay in the district.

Springdale school project subcommittee: Todd and Jeff have begun a statement letting the public know the goal of the district to be fiscally responsible and conservative in expenses.

Booster club: Kristie Stafford
Four out of four teams went to State play-offs! Very proud of all our teams. Football came in 6th, volleyball 3rd, soccer boys 8th, and soccer girls 8th. Very impressive since last year we didn’t even know if we would have any teams! Middle school also had great teams in volleyball and football.
Winter basketball and wrestling is starting. Need coaches for Middle school girls and boys basketball and wrestling.
Red and Black is coming up Saturday 3/10/2012. The theme will be Oregon Wonders and there will be a NW food theme. Matt Leamy will be doing all the printing for the event, and there are scarves available with the Corbett Cardinal theme. They can be purchased on the website for $20, or contact Kristi.

Superintendent report: Six items

Jubitz has been contacted to make sure the school has the go-ahead with the building repair. Ray Jubitz will be sending a letter saying the family does not consider the property theirs, and they are excited the school is going to be used again.

Cascade Locks: could be positive cash flow for the district. Get questions to Randy before the December meeting. What if we open Cascade Locks for students that might have gone to Springdale? That will open up more space here in the district for more students. If there is a protest filed then the districts will both have to vote and get a majority of the voters.

RFP for architects: flat bid with billing dates. Conditional use will be based on county saying if the use changed in the past, and if the new use will be a change. Changes to the exterior will require a design review. The building is now on the National register and the demo to the shed will take a 120 day review and notification process. Getting land use approval will most likely run 4-6 months once the pre-application has been approved.
The date for the Pre-Application will be scheduled in advance so anyone who wants to attend can try and schedule. Try to get the land use approval by 5/15/2012.

Directory Information: There has been a request by a board member for a student directory. This may open us up for anyone to ask for the information and a man who wants can ask for all pictures and addresses of eighth grade girls. We need to consider the consequences of this policy and look into changing it.
Discussion regarding this issue: The board member wants the information because at the previous meeting it was suggested we expand our circle of people we talk to and that it wasn’t right to put information gathering on Randy. The student directory is public information and you have to request the information through proper channels, state who you are, what you want and why you are asking for the information. Administrative review then determines if the request is valid. This request has gone through the OSBA review and determined that if the board member fills out the proper paperwork then it should be provided. (You can not ask for sub-categories of the directory, not even if your goal was to find all A students and target them for scholarships.) Fail safes are already in place regarding valid requests.

Board members attending by phone: This has been brought up by a community member as not being the proper way to attend meetings. The board members have been voted to represent the community and should schedule their other obligations around the board meeting. We need to decide if telephone conferences are proper. Maybe we should have criteria of when it is appropriate to attend by teleconference, like if you are in a hospital bed.
Discussion around this issue: We have the legal right to attend by teleconference. You can not tell the board that they can’t participate if they are not in available to come into the school. You run the risk of not having a quorum, or denying board members to vote on an item they feel is very important but they can’t make the physical location. This can be caused by work, illness or vacation. While some board members feel if they’re gone, they’re gone, others who have had to be out of town appreciated being able to hear, discuss and participate. It was agreed that making every meeting by phone wouldn’t be appropriate. The chair also stated he wasn’t comfortable making the judgment call on the reason behind missing the meeting.

OSCB loan information: The date to first start spending has been moved to March 31, 2012.

The meeting adjourned.