July

State of the Schools

July 2018

1. Policy Updates: Every summer we get a long list of updates to policy recommended by our legal counsel. These changes are based on changes in the law, results of court cases, the need to clarify language and other situations that have arisen. The board passed on second reading a lengthy policy update group this month.

2. Activity admission prices: The board approved a change in activity admission prices. New admission prices are as follows:

Single game

Adult: $5.00

Student: $4.00

Family single game entry is no longer available

Year-long pre-purchased pass

Adult: $60

Student: $30

Family: $110

The change in prices is the first in several years and reflects an area wide change in prices. The other schools in RPAC have raised, or are in the process of raising, their prices for the coming year. The new prices will also match those charged for the conference events.

3. Breakfast and lunch prices: The board voted to leave breakfast and lunch prices at the 2017-2018 level. This is the third year with no increase.

4. Substitute teacher pay: Substitute teacher pay changed from $105 to $110 for the upcoming year.

5. Activity shuttle: We will again be offering the activity shuttle for students participating in after school practices to ride back to Haigler and Stratton. If the district pays a driver, there is a $15 dollar charge per trip to pay the driver. If we have a coach or volunteer drive, there is no fee. The fee is divided by the number of riders, meaning if 15 people ride, the cost is $1.00 per day.

6. Financial report: Our past 5 years to date expenses are:

2018 $5,092,988

2017 $5,039,127

2016 $5,091,928

2015 $5,039,007

2014 $5,035,496

This represents growth of just over 1.14% from total from 2014 to present. Our balances in the General Fund, Special Building Fund, Qualified Capital Purpose Undertaking Fund and Deprecation Fund are all solid. We can begin to look again to address some issues in our buildings and on our grounds. Our ‘new’ building is now 36 years old and they all require increased maintenance over time. We also have some things to address for building safety and security.

7. Pre-school: We have our pre-school staff in place and I like the direction that program will be heading. Becky Brown will bring experience and the knowledge of how the program has been running. Hannah Bergquist will be the new aide and bring new thoughts and ideas along with the enthusiasm of youth to the situation.

We are planning to run the program a little bit differently this year. We are adding a transitional kindergarten for those students who are kindergarten age eligible but are not ready for that jump. State rules say they cannot attend pre-school if they are kindergarten age eligible. We all know that age is not the sole determining factor in kindergarten readiness. Our goal for the transitional kindergarten will be two fold. First, we want to help them fill in their knowledge and skill gaps to be ready for kindergarten. Secondly, we want to help them get ready for the challenges of being in school all day…transition.

8. Farm to Fork: The Lunch Boosters committee of the School Foundation are working on a program to purchase the show animals from the fair for the lunch program.