Recent Posts
-
BEA Scholarship Form Available
Each year the BEA awards a scholarship to a graduating senior who is the son or daughter of a BEA member. This year's form is attached to this post ...
Posted Feb 10, 2012 2:01 PM by Bartlesville Teacher
-
Bond Issue Website: bruinvalentine.com
All district teachers and staff are urged to visit bruinvalentine.com for detailed information on all aspects of the bond issue going to voters on February 14, 2012. You'll ...
Posted Jan 26, 2012 1:08 AM by Bartlesville Teacher
-
January News from the Prez
What a New Year! There have
been a plethora of bowl games, and people making resolutions and it is time to
make changes that could improve our lives.
One of ...
Posted Jan 13, 2012 3:25 PM by Bartlesville Teacher
-
January BEALine
The January BEALine newsletter has been issued.
Posted Jan 13, 2012 3:24 PM by Bartlesville Teacher
posted Feb 10, 2012 2:00 PM by Bartlesville Teacher
[
updated Feb 10, 2012 2:01 PM
]
Each year the BEA awards a scholarship to a graduating senior who is the son or daughter of a BEA member. This year's form is attached to this post and must be submitted to BEA President Kelli Bryant by April 2, 2012. |
posted Jan 26, 2012 1:08 AM by Bartlesville Teacher
The BEA urges you to vote YES on Valentine's Day! Please encourage your family and friends to do the same! The bond will restructure our secondary schools, eventually saving hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in the general fund, 90% of which goes to district salaries. We expect the legislature to further cut income taxes even amidst our ongoing funding crisis and thus erode the tax base for public schools. So we MUST become more efficient to avoid more layoffs. Remember, we are already tapping the fund balance just to make ends meet now, and that is unsustainable. Not only jobs and class sizes but even basic step increases are at risk unless we become even more efficient.
The bond also improves our elementaries, including finally getting rid of the nasty portables at Kane, and provides much-needed major and minor capital projects at every site. It provides the funding we must have for textbooks and other curricula, computers, buses...you name it.
|
posted Jan 13, 2012 3:25 PM by Bartlesville Teacher
What a New Year! There have
been a plethora of bowl games, and people making resolutions and it is time to
make changes that could improve our lives.
One of the changes that is taking place in Bartlesville is the proposal
of a new bond issue that could bring about wonderful opportunities for our
school district. The administrators of
our district visited each site to talk about the benefits of the bond
proposal. There are so many positive
changes and so much work has been put into this bond issue that it is really an
exciting time for our district. So let’s
show our support and voice to our community how passing the new bond issue will
help out schools and students grow.
Kelli Bryant
BEA President |
posted Jan 13, 2012 3:24 PM by Bartlesville Teacher
[
updated Jan 13, 2012 3:24 PM
]
posted Dec 19, 2011 10:17 AM by Bartlesville Teacher
[
updated Dec 19, 2011 10:18 AM
]
Can you believe that it is already December? Christmas is just around the corner and a new
year is almost here! There are so many
things that are associated with Christmas, shopping, sales, stress, sales,
parties, sales, decorations and more sales.
I am sure that you noticed that I said the word sales a few time in the
previous sentence, please bear with me and try to follow my train of
thought. There are
many sales going on at this time of year and people are trying to get the most
“bang for their buck” especially in today’s economy. Most people are going to want the sale that
gives them the best percentage off the item that you want to purchase. Why isn’t it the same way with other things
in life? Today I was given a percentage
that truly startled me. Do you know that only
30 percent of teachers vote in elections?
I was truly shocked when I was given this percentage. Voting is one of the ways that we can give a
voice and back up the opinions that we have about how things are being done in
our society. There are many important
elections coming up in the New Year.
There will be a school board election, a very important bond issue and
of course later next year the presidential election. The December winner is Marty Louthan. Contact
Kelli for your prize. Please take the time to be informed about the issues, the
pros and the cons for each issue or candidate.
More importantly get out and let your voice be heard and make a
difference!
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Kelli Bryant BEA President |
posted Dec 19, 2011 10:15 AM by Bartlesville Teacher
The December 2011 BEALine newsletter has been published. |
posted Dec 8, 2011 8:37 PM by Granger Meador
[
updated Dec 8, 2011 9:15 PM
]
On December 8 the Bartlesville Board of Education voted to adopt the resolution calling for an election on the $49.5 million bond issue on February 14, 2012. Presentations will begin at different school sites to inform teachers about the specifics of the proposal.
School board members Nikki Benson, Mike Orr, and Rick Boswell each commented before the vote that they wanted to ensure that teachers had an active role in the design process for the new buildings, additions, and renovations. It was noted that while some teachers and parents had input on the initial design of the elementary additions, personnel shifts meant some teachers working in the new areas did not have that input.
“I’d just like to see us do an outstanding job — and an even better job than we’ve done at the elementaries — of involving the right people in the design of it,” Board of Education member Nikki Benson said. “I’d like to see us get the appropriate teacher input.”
Dr. Quinn assured board members that design committees would be formed to provide a mechanism for that input as was done for the 2001 bond issue projects at BHS, helping guide the design of the new Fine Arts Center, Bruin Field House, and Science Wing.
At the 12/6 community forum board member Scott Bilger highlighted that a focus of the Long-Range Facilities Planning Committee recommendation was to reduce the number of secondary sites to reduce district expenses. The painful closure of Oak Park Elementary this past summer is turning out to yield $585,000 in annual personnel cost savings plus another $77,000 is being saved on utilities each year now that Oak Park and McKinley are closed. This helped partially offset the $2.6 million in state funding the district has lost since 2009. The board of education agreed to dip into the district fund balance for 2011-2012 since even those savings and continuing personnel cuts could not balance the district budget after another set of severe state funding cuts and the loss of federal stimulus money. Mr. Bilger pointed out that dipping into the fund balance is not sustainable.
It is projected that the secondary reconfiguration in the bond issue would save the district over $5 million in administrative/personnel, utility, and maintenance costs over the 9-year span of the bond issue because of greater efficiencies in operating only three secondary schools and the eventual closure of the Education Service Center and the Will Rogers Complex when their functions are moved to Central to keep that historic facility operational although no longer serving as a middle school.
Mr. Bilger noted that the Long-Range Facilities Planning Committee spent much of its time researching and debating how to address the issue of the middle schools with about half of the 6-8 graders in the 95-year-old Central and the other half in Madison, which was built cheaply in the late 1950s and is deteriorating noticeably. One plan to expand Central to serve all 6-7 graders was estimated to cost $10 million and Committee member Granger Meador points out that students would still have spent most of their day in a 95-year-old facility with its old-fashioned design ill-suited to a true middle school concept. Another plan to expand and renovate Madison would have cost several million dollars more and still left the district with inefficiencies and functional problems from its California-style "Desert Modern" design. Community leaders challenged the Committee to recommend something bold which would truly be best for the 6-7 grade students and the town's long-term growth. More research showed it would be possible to build a new $17.6 million 6-7 grade center which would far better serve those 21st century students.
Physics teacher Granger Meador, also a member of the Planning Committee, pointed out that district patrons cannot vote to increase the general fund millage to boost teacher salaries or reduce class sizes. But they can vote for a bond issue, which can provide better facilities and meet other needs while also reducing operating costs, which thus helps keep class sizes in check.
All but one of the community members who provide opinions in public comment about the bond proposal were supportive of it. One patron did express her concern about sending all of the middle school students to a larger 6-7 grade center on the east side of town at the Madison site, but Dr. Quinn pointed out that the building would be brand new, unlike the 95-year-old Central and the cheaply built Madison, and more importantly the new 6-7 center would be built as a true middle school with multiple pods. Each pod would have a teamed set of core teachers (language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) serving the same group of youngsters who would only leave that school-within-a-school setting for electives.
Other patrons came forward to express their support, as quoted “I am particularly pleased that it seems to be a very sound, comprehensive, long-range plan,” said Byron Boles, a parent of four children in the Bartlesville Public School District, during the public comment section of the meeting. “I just frankly love the idea of moving the tenth graders to the high school and the idea of building the new middle school. … The efficiencies that we are going to get out of a new middle school will be incredible.”
|
posted Dec 8, 2011 7:27 PM by Granger Meador
[
updated Dec 8, 2011 7:43 PM
]
The Tulsa World has reported that the state's Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Commission has recommended to the state Board of Education that Tulsa Public Schools' new appraisal system become the state's primary qualitative assessment model for teachers under the requirements of SB 2033. McREL's Principal Evaluation System was recommended for administrators. The state Board of Education will consider the recommendations at its meeting on December 15, 2011.
Damon Gardenhire, spokesman for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, said if final approval is given by the state Board of Education next week, 75 percent of the pilot year funding would be dedicated to implementing TPS' evaluation in school districts across the state, and the other 25 percent could go toward implementing the other models considered, which were Marzano's Causal Teacher Evaluation Model and Danielson's Framework for Teaching.
The Tulsa system was developed with participation from the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association and with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One noticeable difference between the systems is that Tulsa's system includes 20 elements for ratings, while the Danielson system has a staggering 76 elements and Marzano's has 41 classroom strategies.
Bartlesville has a 10-member committee composed of five BEA representatives and five administrators and school board members which will consider possible changes in our appraisal system after the state Board of Education has made a decision. We are not required to switch to TLE until 2013-2014.
Note that the proposed system only comprises the qualitative aspect of the state-mandated TLE system, with the remainder being quantitative. This is far more controversial, with 35% of the appraisal supposed to come from student academic growth using multiple years of standardized test data. As previously reported, the Commission has already recommended that a "Value Added Model" be used for that area. But many subjects and some grade levels have no standardized test data and in its absence the law requires that objective measures, including student performance on unit or end-of-year tests, be used. The Commission failed to recommend how to implement that requirement, only saying further research should be conducted. The final 15% is to come from "other academic measures" and here the Commission also failed to make a recommendation other than for additional study.
Tulsa Public Schools TLE Observation and Evaluation System: web site- Danielson’s Framework for Teaching: web site
- Marzano Causal Teacher Evaluation Model: web site
|
posted Dec 1, 2011 6:50 PM by Bartlesville Teacher
[
updated Dec 1, 2011 6:51 PM
]
There will be a Bartlesville school board meeting/community forum about the 2012 bond issue proposal on Tuesday, December 6th at 5:30 p.m. in the Bruin Field House Hospitality Room at the south end of the senior high campus. |
posted Nov 21, 2011 8:21 PM by Bartlesville Teacher
[
updated Nov 22, 2011 5:43 PM
]
Superintendent Quinn presented to the Board of Education on 11/21/2011 a bond issue proposal from the District's Long-Range Facilities Planning Committee. The board will take action on the proposal at a noon meeting on December 8. If the board accepts the proposal, the bond issue would go before voters on Valentine's Day: February 14, 2012.
Eventually a presentation about the bond issue will be made at each school site. Since the details on the bond issue financing are still being worked out, this post identifies the major components of the bond issue without breaking out the costs by project. The total cost is a bit under $50 million.
The plan is similar to the previous $30 million bond issues in 2000 and 2007 in that it includes funding for major capital projects as well as technology, curriculum, transportation, and music and athletics programs. The proposed plan does not increase the effective millage rate, so the property tax levels for district patrons would be unchanged. It is an 8 or 9-year bond issue to allow the full amount to be raised, but uses a lease/purchase arrangement to speed up construction projects.
SECONDARY SCHOOL RECONFIGURATION The Long-Range Facilities Planning Committee recognized that the 2001 bond issue made significant improvements to the senior high and the 2007 bond issue expanded several elementaries and the mid-high, but the middle schools were largely unaddressed. The committee also recognized that repeated crises from declining state funding make it imperative that the district continue to reduce personnel, utility, and site costs if it is to preserve class sizes and provide for competitive salary growth. So a plan was developed which would address the needs of the middle schools while achieving significant long-term savings in operational and personnel costs by closing one of the four secondary schools.
| SITE | NOW | PROPOSAL | | Senior High (1939) | Grades 11-12 | Grades 10-12 | | Mid-High (1967) | Grades 9-10 | Grades 8-9 | | NEW 6th/7th Grade Center | | Grades 6-7 | | Central Middle School (1917) | Grades 6-8 | Education Service Center (relocating functions from the current ESC and the Will Rogers Complex, which would be closed and sold) | | Madison Middle School (1958) | Grades 6-8 | Demolished; site used for new 6/7 center |
SENIOR HIGH To accommodate sophomores, an 18-room three-story classroom addition on the north end of campus (extending the science wing) would provide a Bruin Academy complex on the ground floor, four new science labs on the first floor, and eight new classrooms on the second floor. A new cafeteria/commons would be built to the south of the stadium adjoining the east side of the connecting link. The 1939 Phillips Field House would be renovated to provide larger spaces for weight rooms, wrestling, poms and cheerleaders, and band instrument storage.
The ambitious timeline calls for beginning construction in the summer of 2012 so that sophomores could move over beginning with the 2013-2014 school year. Construction delays could of course shift that back to January 2014 or later if necessary.
MID-HIGH The cafeteria would be expanded to reduce the number of lunches needed to serve the 8th and 9th graders and the office area would be reworked to provide better entrance security.
MIDDLE SCHOOLS The committee wrestled for a long time with the best solution to the problem of two aging middle schools, each with significant shortcomings. During the life of the next bond issue Central would reach 100 years of continuous use and it is difficult to further expand the building because of its design and an ungainly cafeteria/classroom building to the north blocking expansion into Earl Sears Park. Madison is much newer than Central, but was built cheaply during the baby boom using a "California-style" architecture with free standing brick walls surrounded by windows. Over the years it has deteriorated significantly and most of the windows have been filled or painted in due to problems with light and climate control. The committee was faced with very expensive remodels and additions at either site to allow either one to serve all 6th and 7th graders and achieve the desired personnel and utility cost savings.
The committee was also cognizant of increasing competition from Owasso for relocating families. Owasso is a growing community and school district, so its facilities are much newer and more attractive than Bartlesville's current middle schools, which serve a district which has had a stable enrollment of about 6,000 students for several decades.
The committee eventually recommended a lease-purchase arrangement in a large-scale bond issue so that an entirely new 6th/7th grade center could be built near Madison. Madison could then be razed, perhaps retaining the existing free-standing auditorium. Recognizing the community's affection for the historic Central building, the committee recommended consolidating existing district functions from the Education Service Center and Will Rogers Complex into Central, allowing the other two buildings to be shut down and sold off. Thus Central would remain an active educational site for a variety of district functions, but would no longer serve as a secondary school.
The ambitious timeline calls for beginning construction in 2012 with the new school operational by January 2014. One might expect that any significant construction delays could cause that to slip to August 2014.
EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER AT RICHARD KANE ELEMENTARY The only portable buildings still in use by the district are three old and decrepit portables serving five classes at Richard Kane and a portable at Madison. All of these would be eliminated and a new Early Childhood Center would be added to Richard Kane Elementary, in the same style as the new pods at Wayside, Wilson, and Ranch Heights.
IMPROVEMENTS AT OTHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS Each of the other elementaries would receive their top-priority improvements. Hoover would have a reworked entryway to improve security and work on its gym floor and a side entrance canopy. Wayside would have expanded storage and a walkway cover, Wilson would receive playground equipment, Ranch Heights would have an asphalt playground expansion, and Jane Phillips would get windows for its cafeteria.
ATHLETICS Custer Stadium would get a new press box, sound system, lights, and handrails. A new visitor concession stand and restroom would replace one of the old ones near the south ticket booth. The five aging tennis courts at the senior high would be replaced by eight new courts at the Mid-High. The Phillips Field House at BHS would be revamped for expanded areas for weights, wrestling, poms, and cheerleading.
FINE ARTS The BHS Fine Arts Center would receive lighting and sound upgrades, band instrument storage would be expanded, and the bond includes funding for risers as well as a variety of band instruments, equipment, and uniforms as well as vocal music equipment and clothing.
CURRICULAR NEEDS The bond would include funding for a variety of curricular needs including software, textbooks, elementary school FOSS science kits, and secondary school science lab equipment.
TECHNOLOGY The bond would include funding to replace computers, printers, copiers, and projectors. It would have funding for a video distribution system and, if tablet technology and electronic textbooks should mature sufficiently, future handheld devices for students and faculty.
CHILD NUTRITION & CUSTODIAL For the first time in many years the bond would include funding to improve district cafeteria and kitchen equipment as well as custodial equipment.
MINOR CAPITAL PROJECTS The bond would include funding for ongoing maintenance needs such as new carpet and flooring, blinds, windows, roof repairs and replacements, and climate control system repairs.
TRANSPORTATION A separate bond issue would provide ongoing funding to replace aging district vehicles, including buses.
LEASE/PURCHASE Because of the district's limited bonding capacity, adding on to the senior high and building a new middle school would normally take years to accomplish. The bond issue proposal includes utilizing a lease/purchase arrangement, similar to what is done in many suburban schools. This would provide money up-front to immediately start adding on to the senior high and building a new middle school. The chief advantages include: - more of the current parents can see their children in the new buildings rather than waiting up to eight years before the middle school could be completed
- interest rates and construction costs are extremely low at this time and are expected to rise significantly in coming years as the economy improves
- net cost savings from consolidation could be realized sooner
The downside to the proposed lease/purchase arrangement is that the district's counsel and financial advisers do not recommend that we follow the lead of some other districts in using bond funds to pay interest on the lease/purchase agreements due to legal concerns about the constitutionality of that approach. Instead they recommend using the district's building fund to pay that interest, an approach clearly supported by a 2009 state law. This will put a strain on the building fund which the administration contends can be handled by utilizing an existing $900,000 balance left over from the previous sale of the Limestone property and by using some of the cost savings from consolidating the secondary schools to offset the interest costs, with the district coming out ahead after a few tight years in the building fund. The danger is that if the building fund is drawn down too far then the general fund and/or the district's fund balance might have to be tapped to pay some of the interest. But without a lease/purchase agreement it does not appear feasible to build a new middle school, something the committee felt was of prime importance in a truly long-range plan.
MORE DETAILS TO COME Further information, including an approximate cost breakdown by project, will be forthcoming. |
|
Bartlesville Education Association
