Enrollment up to 144, High Goals for Students
The Meadows Valley School Board of Trustees held a meeting on Tuesday, September 24 at 7:00 p.m. Board members Barbara Dixon, Jeff Luff, Chris Peterson, and Shayleen Brooks were present along with Superintendent & Principal Dee Fredrickson and Board Clerk Carol Whitney. Board member Stepheny Becker, Vice Principal Katey Basye, and Josh Kinard of Harlow’s School Bus Service attended on Zoom.
The meeting began with unanimous approval of the consent agenda followed by Superintendent and Principal Dee Fredrickson’s reports. Fredrickson reported that enrollment is currently at 144 students compared to last year’s ending enrollment number of 120 students. MAP and other testing has been completed and will provide useful baselines for teachers and administration to help students academically.
Fredrickson noted that the deadline to spend Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) Money is fast approaching. She also noted professional development has been going well and the new hires are working diligently and settling in well. Teachers and staff will attend another High Reliability Training with McCall, Donnelly, and Cascade schools in mid-October. Fredrickson noted that Miriam Carpenter has joined the team supporting Carolyn Swanson in the kitchen and is doing an excellent job. Teachers are working on Individual Professional Learning Plan goals and learning a new evaluation platform introduced by the state board.
Fredrickson reported that the new air quality sensors are all installed and operational.
In athletics, the girls high school and middle school volleyball teams are playing hard and each team has one more scheduled home game.
A meeting was held with the community garden committee and an action plan for improvements is being put together.
Fredrickson submitted a draft version of the Continuous Improvement Plan to the Board for their review and input and a discussion followed. Goals are aggressive and based on a range of tests and historical trends as well as specific to each grade. A large focus is on Kindergarten through Third grade students reading at grade level. Therefore, the goal for improvement is to see 80% of kids proficient or rising up one tier by the end of the school year. Another goal is making sure all high school seniors are applying to post graduation schooling or training of some sort. The plan looks at goals based on recent testing scores, historical trends, and measures progress for each grade of students separately.
Next up was action items starting with the bus contract. Kinard from Harlow’s was introduced to the Board and Fredrickson explained the school’s concerns on rising prices and historical changes. Kinard explained there is a Consumer Price Increase in contracts that references an annual change. This is about a 9% increase year over year of the per-day price based on rates noted in the meeting. Since McCall-Donnelly School District is the nearest school to New Meadows and buses are maintained and sometimes stored at that location, the two contracts are mixed in determining rates per-route and then contracted separately with per-route and per-day costs. New Meadows has two routes and rents two buses. Increases to costs such as insurance, general upkeep, maintenance, and salary costs all can contribute to total cost. The buses the school owns are not equipped to be used for school bus pick up and drop off routes, but only for transportation to set locations for things like athletic events or field trips.
The school will be reimbursed for about half of the cost of the bus bill at $68,262 from state funds. Fredrickson and the School Board asked for the contract to continue reflecting a limit to the cost of living increase to not exceed 6%. Kinard agreed to bring that to his legal team and stated since it was included in past contracts it should not be a problem to continue including.
After the discussion with Kinard, the trustees discussed other possible options for busing and concluded that once the 6% cost of living increase cap is included they will sign the contract for this year. A motion to approve the contract if the discussed cost of living increase cap is included was approved unanimously.
The 2023-2024 Audit was approved unanimously after a short discussion. A Snow Removal Bid Request was approved unanimously and will be posted publicly.
Policy 3370 and 3370P related to student search policies were approved unanimously. Staff who may be involved have been recently trained.
Policy 3510, 3510F1, and 3510F2 regarding student medication and treatment was approved as a first reading unanimously. Policy 3500 and 3500F were approved as a third reading unanimously. After discussion, the Board moved to wait on full approval of these policies since they refer to other policies that need reviewing or updating.
With no further business on the agenda, the meeting was adjourned. The next School Board of Trustees meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 8 at 7:00 p.m..
