Galion BOE updated on One-to-One Program, Professional Development

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

Galion Board of Edu­ca­tion held a reg­u­lar meet­ing Sept. 12. Updates on the 2012–13 school year and the One-to-One Tech­nol­ogy Pro­gram were pro­vided, along with details for this year’s Pro­fes­sional Development.

Before the meet­ing, sam­ple cups of ice cream were passed out that came from the new frozen yogurt machine the dis­trict pur­chased recently. The yogurt is now being offered to stu­dents in the cafeteria.

It was Terri Day’s first meet­ing as trea­surer for Galion City Schools. She was hired by the Board in July and attended the August meet­ings to bring her­self up to speed. Day pre­sented the finan­cial report for August, which was approved.

Dr. Sandy Pow­ell, direc­tor of cur­ricu­lum, pre­sented the “Pro­fes­sional Devel­op­ment Focus” for the 2012–13 school year. She explained that the empha­sis was devel­op­ment for the One-to-One tech­nol­ogy pro­gram that the dis­trict started this school year, by incor­po­rat­ing project-based learn­ing for stu­dents and new instruc­tion prac­tices for teachers.

Dr. Kathy Jen­ney, super­in­ten­dent of the dis­trict, added that she had been meet­ing with par­ents recently about the One-to-One pro­gram to inform them of the district’s plans. There was a delay in get­ting com­put­ers out, but the 8th graders were set to get their lap­tops on Fri­day (yes­ter­day). Other grades to fol­low in the com­ing weeks.

Pow­ell also said there is still no state report card for the dis­trict due to the Ohio Depart­ment of Education’s inves­ti­ga­tion of some school dis­tricts that allegedly sub­mit­ted inac­cu­rate data. How­ever, Board Pres­i­dent Den­nis Long noted that some pre­lim­i­nary infor­ma­tion should be released soon.

Dur­ing a meet­ing last month, Pow­ell explained the 3rd grade guar­an­tee to the Board, in which stu­dents in grades K-3 will be required to have their read­ing skills assessed each year. She said the dis­trict will need to cre­ate inter­ven­tion tools for stu­dents in each grade who do not meet the require­ments. (Third grade stu­dents who fail the assess­ment will be retained, start­ing with the 2013–14 school year.)

Par­ents of fail­ing stu­dents in all of those grades will be noti­fied after stu­dents are assessed. ODE is allow­ing indi­vid­ual dis­tricts to use what­ever means of inter­ven­tion they choose this year, but begin­ning next year there will be set guidelines.

Jen­ney com­mented that all of the school build­ings had a smooth start last week, even with the cuts that had to be made. She pro­vided an update on enroll­ment num­bers for this year. The pri­mary and inter­me­di­ate schools both had a slight increase and the mid­dle school was up 26 stu­dents. Jen­ney reported there were 58 more stu­dents alto­gether in the dis­trict this year.

She dis­cussed issues like class sizes and stu­dent sched­ul­ing with the Board. Both issues are at the mid­dle school, and come because of a larger stu­dent pop­u­la­tion as well as the staff reduc­tions. Some high school teach­ers also teach at mid­dle school to accom­mo­date the smaller staff.

Jen­ney also said that about 15 fam­i­lies took advan­tage of the revi­sion to the trans­porta­tion pol­icy that was imple­mented this year, in which stu­dents could be picked up or dropped off at one alter­na­tive address.

In per­son­nel rec­om­men­da­tions, Josh Rig­gle (ele­men­tary teacher) was rein­stated and Jan­ice Tus­can (edu­ca­tional assis­tant) was recalled. The fol­low­ing extra duty assign­ments were approved: Bryce Lehman as 7th grade girls bas­ket­ball coach, Fred Beachy as 8th grade girls bas­ket­ball coach and Cara Yaussey as a home instruc­tion tutor.

“We need to look at num­bers again to see how much we’re actu­ally sav­ing now,” Board mem­ber Bob Zeisler said. He was con­cerned that the amount the dis­trict saved as a result of staff reduc­tions has been sig­nif­i­cantly reduced because of all the employ­ees that have been brought back.

In finan­cial rec­om­men­da­tions, the new health and den­tal insur­ance pre­mium rates were approved, effec­tive Nov. 1. The new insur­ance bro­ker for the dis­trict is Super­Me­d­Plus Med­ical and the rates were a 14.7 per­cent increase for dis­trict. Final appro­pri­a­tions for fis­cal year 2013 were approved and the trea­surer will sub­mit them to the county audi­tor by Oct. 1.

The Board approved con­tracts with Apple Lane Trans­porta­tion to pro­vide stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties trans­porta­tion to Mans­field Mid­dle and High schools, and with AVID Cen­ter for mem­ber­ship and pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment ser­vices at the mid­dle and high schools in the amount of $16,325.

An agree­ment with K12 School Con­sul­tants was also approved for address ver­i­fi­ca­tion ser­vices. The com­pany checks the addresses of Galion res­i­dents who go to school at other dis­tricts. Jen­ney explained this elim­i­nates fraud and ensures proper dis­trict responsibility.

A final agree­ment with North­west Ohio Juve­nile Deten­tion, Train­ing and Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter was also approved to pro­vide Galion res­i­dent stu­dents with edu­ca­tion. Jen­ney explained that there have been some stu­dents in the dis­trict placed there by the courts, but they are still respon­si­ble for paying.

In a final order of busi­ness, the Board passed a res­o­lu­tion with the admin­is­tra­tive sup­port staff to increase employee con­tri­bu­tion to insur­ance pre­mi­ums by 10 per­cent. The Board then entered exec­u­tive ses­sion to con­sider the appoint­ment, employ­ment, dis­missal, dis­ci­pline, pro­mo­tion, demo­tion or com­pen­sa­tion of a pub­lic employee. No fur­ther action was to be taken.