As always,
these are my opinions only and not the opinions of the Pendleton County School
Board or any other individual Board members.
The summer has flown by like it always does. Here is an update on some of the major issues
and events that occurred this summer:
May 21, 2015 General Meeting
Ms. Kristina Sheehy and Mr. Tony Dietrich did a great job with their
presentation on MAP testing. Mr.
Dietrich mentioned that 54.3% of the senior class was career ready, and 53.7%
of seniors are college ready. Both of
these scores are considerable improvements from last year. The Reading Plus program identified 200 high
school students that were behind in reading skills. In fact, one of my sons was identified by the
program. He saw a significant gain in
reading skills when he took his last ACT.
Ms. Sheehy integrated student voice in the form of video into the
presentation. I believe it is always
more powerful when it comes from the student.
When Ms. Sheehy was presenting the results, I noticed that both 2nd
grade classes at both elementary schools did not show growth in reading. Usually, this would indicate curricular
issues. Ms. Pugh from Southern
Elementary suggested that this is the first time students must read the test on
their own. The next day a teacher
contacted me and mentioned that another possible cause for this lack of growth
is this is the first group of students that were impacted by the reduction in
kindergarten to a half day with a certified teacher. It is worth noting, and I plan to watch very
closely next year.
We unanimously approved the budget.
I am concerned that the revenue side is very optimistic. I will take a wait and watch approach until
the end of the fiscal year, which is June 30th. At that time, I will have a better idea of
how we are doing as far as our revenue.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions until after the end of year numbers
are back.
I voted against the certified/classified pay scales as presented. It is for the same reasons I voted against
the pay scales last year. There are
still pockets of favoritism in certain sections of the certified pay
scale. I also had major issues with the
classified pay scale this year. In the
last two years, a standard increase was fairly applied throughout the
classified pay scale. This is the first
time I have seen inequity in the classified pay scale as well.
I have started compiling data comparing our current certified pay scale to the 2014-15 Bracken County Certified Pay Scale. It was very eye opening. Essentially, Bracken County pays junior teachers better than Pendleton, but Pendleton County pays senior teachers better. I also compared our district proposed certified pay scale to the certified pay scale that Campbell County just approved. It is hard to believe at one time Pendleton County paid their teachers more than Campbell County paid their teachers. Before my mother-in-law’s death, she showed me some of the pay scales from the 1980s-1990’s that bear out this fact.
Finally, SES
was awarded the Twenty First Century Learning grant. I would like to congratulate Laura Pugh and
all those who worked on the grant.
Hopefully, these additional resources will help increase student
achievement and prevent the summer slide.
June 15, 2015 General Meeting
We welcomed Ms. Cheri Griffin to our Board at this meeting. Ms. Griffin has been a teacher at NES for
many years and has served on the Site Based Council at Sharp Middle
School. I am certain that these
experiences will help Ms. Griffin in her new role as Board member.
Mr. Tony Dietrich presented the TELL survey results at this
meeting. When teachers were asked if
class sizes were reasonable such that teachers have time available to meet the
needs of all students, the results showed a 30.5% increase in satisfaction with
regard to that question. Districtwide
the results had gone from 41.9% in 2013 to 72.4% in 2015. Ms. Jodi Bertram mentioned that while this
was to be commended, there are still 1/3 of teachers who are not
satisfied. I agree with Ms. Bertram that
we still have much work to do.
It was “pitched” to the
board that night in a memo from Ms. Jan Johnston and verbally in the meeting
from Mr. Strong that we needed to revote on the Classified pay scale because several lines in
the Category B listing were missing, and the correction would extend the Steps
in Category B to 24. However, what was
not mentioned to the board was it was a major renovation of the whole Category
B. Was this lack of information
intentional? There was a state statute this year that required each employee
get a 2% pay increase. Something of this
magnitude would warrant a Superintendent’s knowledge of the pay scales. Unlike last month, I did vote “Yes” for this
amended Classified pay scale because this time it was fair and equitable for
all the employees that fall into this section.
July 13, 2015 General Meeting
I need to share some background knowledge before I talk about this
meeting:
·
Pendleton County Schools currently have 3
“nickel” taxes to support our schools buildings. Our yearly bond payments total about 2.5
million dollars. However, the 3 nickels
bring in about $2.1 million toward that debt each year. The rest comes from our general fund. Therefore, every penny that is brought in by
the nickel tax has to be used for making bond payments for our schools. Last month, $734,000 was moved out of the 320
escrow account (bond account) to our Fund 1 to make our end of year balance
look healthy. The board approved this
move last year so I will take full responsibility for that. However, this transfer needs to stop.
·
We just finished the fiscal year on June 30th. There are some revenue assumptions in the
budget for this year that I think are not achievable. The following is a table to make it easy to
understand:
Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2014
|
Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2015
|
Fiscal Year ending July 1, 2016
(budgeted)
|
|
Motor Vehicle Tax
|
522,000
|
505,000
|
700,000
|
Franchise Tax
|
118,000
|
99,500
|
300,000
|
Utility Tax
|
696,000
|
624,000
|
805,000
|
Source of information
|
Annual Budget 2014
|
Annual Budget 2015
|
Tentative Budget Report for 2016
|
I am concerned that the projected revenue is going to be
about a $600,000 shortfall based on the historical data from the last two
years. I don’t think this is achievable
unless a lot of people suddenly buy new cars, start new businesses, etc.
·
We had a Special Meeting on June 25th,
in which we went into executive session per KRS 61.810 (1) (f) to have
discussions which might lead to the appointment of an individual employee-
board attorney. After our meeting was
over, Dr. Strong shared with us that Ms. Razor had decided to leave our
district. He shared his thoughts on
bringing back the Executive Director of Teaching & Learning. He led the board to believe that this topic would
be discussed at our next Board meeting.
·
When the agenda to the meeting came out on
Thursday July 9, there was nothing on the agenda regarding the Executive
Director of Teaching & Learning. On
Friday July 10th, I requested that the positions of Assistant
Superintendent & Executive Director of Teaching & Learning be placed on
the action agenda for Monday. I firmly
believe that we need to have a discussion about these positions publicly and not through email
especially considering our current financial situation. Ms. Jodi Bertram was planning on attending
the meeting on Monday July 14th via Skype. Ms. Bertram had known this meeting was going
to be a problem for her, and she had planned on attending via Skype for some
time. Interestingly, our Board attorney
sent an email to the entire Board on the morning of Saturday July 11th. After receiving the email, Ms. Bertram
decided she should not attend the meeting.
What could have possibly been said to keep her from Skyping into the meeting? And why suddenly can’t Board members Skype
when I remember Mr. Spence and Dr. Verax
Skyping into meetings numerous times in the last two years. It makes you wonder. Was something being done intentionally to
keep Ms. Bertram from participating in our meeting on Monday?
At this meeting, I made the
motion to suspend Dr. Strong’s ability to fill the positions until the next
meeting when the full Board was present for discussion. I felt that something this important should
have the full Board present to discuss.
This motion failed because there was a 2-2 split. Therefore, Dr. Strong will continue to fill
this position. We have a limited amount
of money. In recent months, I have
gotten a clear message that this board is absolutely against raising
taxes. You can’t have it both ways. It simply isn’t possible. If you are not going to raise taxes, you have
to cut somewhere. It needs to be
positions that have the least impact on our students. We currently have two curriculum people in
central office. Why do we need a third
one?
July 27, 2015 Special Meeting
Several years ago, the midday transportation for preschoolers was
eliminated to save money for our district.
Because of these cuts, our district saw a drop in preschool
enrollment. At this meeting, your Board
approved the wrap around preschool contracts for NES and SES. Many of you are probably thinking why she
would agree to pay for this and not pay for additional curriculum
personnel. The answer is this is money
well spent. In the end, you will spend
less money for these students if you can start them off on the right foot at an
early age. It will be less expensive to
offer the preschool wrap around program than to pay for midday transportation.
There was an executive session concerning the District’s legal counsel. The Board came out of executive session, and
voted to hire Matthew DeMarcus of Wolnitzek, Rowekamp & DeMarcus. Mr. Elmer Utz, Ms. Jodi Bertram and I voted
“Yes” and Ms. Cheri Griffin and Mr. Tony Spence voted “No.”
