1 SAC COMMUNITY SCHOOL BOARD CALL TO ORDER
The Sac Community School Board meeting was called to order on May 16, 2011 at 6:00PM by Board President Shirley Phillips. All board members were present.
2. SAC COMMUNITY SCHOOL BOARD APPROVAL OF CONSENT AGENDA
The consent agenda was approved unanimously without comment. Following are the bills and financial report:
051611jescdoc0001
After approval, board secretary Frank Strain noted that the board was transferring and extr
3. WALL LAKE VIEW AUBURN SCHOOL CALL TO ORDER
The Wall Lake View Auburn School Board meeting was called to order on May 16, 2011 at 6:03PM by Board President
4. WALL LAKE VIEW AUBURN APPROVAL OF CONSTENT AGENDA
East Sac County School Business Manager John Kraft asked the board if they had any concerns regarding some of the larger bills. As the board had no concerns they commenced with approving the bills.
Because there are two board members, Lisa Drost and Chuck Brotherton with conflicts of interest regarding two of the items within the bills, these two items, Wall Lake Lumber and Albrecht Oil, were separated out and voted on separately. Both Brotherton and Drost abstained where appropriate.
The board then went on to approve the consent agenda unanimously. Following are WLVA’s bills and financial report:
051611jescdoc0002
WLVA’s bills equal $564,802.04
5. REVIEW OF ESC MISSION STATEMENT
The East Sac County School’s mission statement, “East Sac County Schools empower all students to become productive, responsible citizens of an ever-changing global society” was read aloud. Brotherton asked the boards to keep this mission statement in mind while making the evenings votes.
6. SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT
The week of May 9, 2011 was school board recognition week, and East Sac County Superintendent Dr. Kevin Fiene presented each of the school board members with certificates of recognition and appreciation.
Fiene gave the boards a heads up that this summer will be pretty aggressive in terms of maintenance projects at the school.
Fiene reminded the board that the last Learning for the 21st Century Committee will take place on May 24 and that the results of those meetings will be shared with the public after that time.
Each year the Industrial tech students take projects down to the Southeast Polk Exhibition. On a typical year, the Des Moines Rotary Club awards one $1,000 scholarship to one of the exhibitors. This year they award the $1,000 dollar scholarship, and three additional scholarships worth $500. Two ESC students, Tanner Berry and Phil Brotherton were awarded the $1,000 and $500 Scholarships respectively. The board was reminded that the next day, May 17 there would be an exhibition of the Industrial tech projects as well as Family Consumer Science and Art projects at the High School gym.
7. HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL’S REPORT
Right now the high school cafeteria is quite small. They are forced to run lunch in three waves with the middle wave attending classes for 22 minutes before lunch and for 23 minutes after lunch. Working together with the maintenance crew, it was determined that the small gym could be kept sanitary with daily cleaning utilizing existing machinery and techniques. As the gym is larger, this will allow the school to reduce the waves of students to two waves.
Because the cafeteria is still a relatively large room, the administration discussed turning it into a college class room.
May 2011 ESC High School Principals Report
8. MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL’S REPORT
May 2011 ESC Middle School Principals Report
In addition to the above report , East Sac County Middle School Principal Denny Olhausen added that the final concert of the year will be performed outside of the middle school lunchroom in that paved area. He also reported that the Sac County Pork Producers may be on hand to serve pork burgers.
According to Olhausen the fourth graders were supposed to do their transition day activities at Hagge Park but were unable to do so because the mud. Those activities were instead held in the middle school auditorium. At issue was the fact that that evening the Simon Estes concert was going to be held and they did not want a scenario where the fourth graders were correct in mud into the auditorium just hours before the performance.
8. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL’S REPORT
May 2011 ESC Elementary School Principals Report
9. BUILDING LEADERSHIP TEAM REPORT
Two members of the student Building Leadership Team (BLT) Brent Drey and Jamie Highland appeared before the school boards to update them on the accomplishments and concerns of the BLT.
The BLT began at the start of the 2009-2010 school year. The homeroom advisers chose one student out of each of their homeroom groups to serve on this committee. According to Drey it’s very similar in structure to the teacher BLT teams.
The student BLT teams are split up into two groups; the junior and the senior group. The junior group is composed of 9th and 10th graders the senior group is composed of 11th and 12th graders.
Some of the policies that they have discussed over the last couple years include the following:
1. The BLT has noticed that there is a lot of surreptitious use of cell phones in the hallways and in classrooms by both students and teachers. They have proposed a rule be changed to allow more freedom of use of this ubiquitous technology. They propose that a relaxing of the rules be considered perhaps as early as next school year.
2. Right now seniors are able to opt out of second semester tests. What the BLT proposing that seniors be able to opt out of second semester non college courses as long as they have their first semester course work complete and are maintaining an “A”.
3. The biggest thing that the BLT wants to stress is technology. According to Drey there have been technology issues that have occasionally idled students because they were unable to work on the papers which were stuck on the servers that they could not get to. He indicated that these issues were mostly address that the present time, but that it is very important to stay on top of these issues because students use technology in almost every class. Said Drey, “If we’re going to learn we need that.”
According to Drey, the BLT is the voice of the students. If students have concerns they can come to one of the BLT meetings every other Wednesday and discuss them. This allows the BLT take these issues to administration, who can then take them up to the school board, thus allowing those students to be heard.
Drey emphasized to the boards that when making decisions that impact students’ lives to remember to include those students in the discussion.
School Board President Chuck Brotherton asked, “Do you feel that BLT Committee has been a benefit to the students?” Both Drey and Highland indicated emphatically that they do feel that BLT has been a benefit the students. Highland indicated that when other students find out she is on the BLT they feel comfortable sharing with her student issues that they have, even if they are not within the confines of an actual BLT meeting.
Said Drey, “One of the best things that has probably happened administratively in high school over the last couple of years is the BLT.”
In regards to the interaction between the BLT and student council Drey indicated that there is not a conflict due to the fact that the BLT addresses the student concerns and the student council organizes class competitions. At this time the student BLT does not associate or coordinate with either the teacher BLT or the student council. Drey indicated that he feels they all do a very good job of staying out of each other’s business.
Right now the student BLT is represented by about 20 members.
Principal Litterer indicated that he was very impressed with the way that the student members of the BLT will sit down with staff and voice their concerns, something that he said students in his day would have been afraid to do. He went on to suggest that due to the student BLT ability to articulate their concerns, staff listens to them and they are taken seriously.
Not only did the boards thank Drey and Highland for their presentation but they got a little round of applause to boot.
10. SAC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ROOF PROJECT
On Friday, June 3, 2011 there will be a pre-construction meeting between administration and Benchmark, the contractors will be replacing the Sac elementary roof, to make sure that everybody is on the same page regarding the project.
Dr. Fiene shared with the boards that construction time may be as short as 22 days with a start date as early as June 6, 2011. Said Fiene, “everything is unfolding the way it’s supposed to unfold in this point.”
One thing that wasn’t decided is color. The flashing around the outside of the roof, the part that you can see, has faded to a color that cannot be matched by any of the available colors offered. After a few minutes of discussion the board decided that they would go with the color Medium Bronze, and that all of the flashing would be painted to match.
11. SUMMER PROJECTS AND CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLANS
Dr. Fiene gave the board a brief summary of all the possible projects that they could work on both this summer and long-term and shared with the board his ideological philosophy that they should not allow themselves to get behind. This list of projects was not available at publication.
As the conversation turned to specifics Sac Community School Board Member Bren t Wilhelm indicated that he wanted talk about the restrooms at the middle school. According to Wilhelm, who admitted that he was no expert, the rest rooms are going to cost in the neighborhood of $60,000 to replace the porcelain, partitions and hardware. Wilhelm didn’t seem to think that this would be sufficient. The superintendent interjected this point suggesting that they were in fact considering remodeling the bathrooms, but the explanation of remodeling that the superintendent gave did not seem to be exactly what Wilhelm had in mind. Wilhelm suggested that if they are going to spend $60,000 they may as well just go ahead and spend $100,000 and do right. New tile, new doors… A complete redesign.
Brotherton was concerned that if the school did a complete redesign they would have to involve an architect, which would add expense. The Sac County School Business Manager John Kraft verified that several recent projects did require an architect.
After a period of silent consideration the board seemed to come to consensus that if they are going to do it they need to do right. Said Brotherton, “a lot of times it doesn’t cost that much more to go first class.”
At this point the board moved on to approve all projects on the list that cost less than $25,000, and to approve the following list of projects that are estimated to cost more than $25,000:
For the Sac community school board,
$30,262.06 for carpeting in the hallways and three classrooms of the Sac elementary building by Keith’s interiors of Sac City, Iowa.
$32,610 for painting of locker rooms and rest rooms at the Sac elementary building by K&D Painting of Carroll Iowa.
$70,900 for package a number one to replace playground equipment at the Sac elementary buildingby Boland Recreation of Marshalltown, Iowa.
Also approved was the purchase of four outdoor basketball hoops for the elementary site.
For the WLVA board,
$43,800 for new heating slash cooling in the administrative offices and Family and Consumer Science rooms by Carroll Control Systems of Carroll, Iowa.
$36,900 to supply electrical service to the new Family and Consumer Science room by Lohrmann Electric.
12. APPROVAL OF THE 2009 – 2010 FINANCIAL AUDIT
The 2009-2010 WLVA financial audit revealed nothing really surprising this time around. As with all small governmental agencies the auditor found the problem with segregation of duties. The East Sac County school has received this same criticism from the auditor in the past in their audits. The auditor reported that there were no complaints, that the budget looked fine, and that there were no legal notice violations. The school board had no further questions for him, and approved the audit unanimously without further comment.
The 2009 - 2010 Sac financial audit revealed no issues that were different from the WLVA financial audit, with the exception that the school’s financial officer also holds a position with the bank at which the school does business. Without further comment the SAC school board unanimously approved a financial audit.
The audits were performed by the Burton Tracey Company.
13. RESIGNATIONS AND CONTRACTS
Todd Bontrager resigned as the Girls Golf Coach, and Darcy Adams resigned as the high school media associate.
Sara Carlson was hired as an assistant speech coach for $1,300.
14. DATE FOR NEXT MEETING SET AND ADJORNMENT
The date for the june joint school board meeting was set for June 27, 2011 at 4:00 PM in the SAC elementary board room. The meeting adjourned at 7:20 PM.
Don't just take my word for it, watch the video! ;) Curtis Bloes
Terms of Use
Curtis Bloes - Editor
