Also changes timing of raises for associates, secretaries
Students in the construction trades program at the Greene County Career Academy won’t build a house this school year, but will instead build a storage facility at the high school to supplement a shortage of storage space there.
The Greene County Schools board at its Aug. 17 meeting approved an amount up to $250,000 for the 30’ by 108’ building. The building will be located east of the high school and will not impact future plans for an athletic facility on the campus.
Construction trades instructor Kirk Davis said there are 12 students enrolled in the program. “They need a project to do,” he said.
The board in June decided not to build a house as the estimated cost would have been $300,000, and although persons had expressed interested in purchasing the house, no one had committed. The construction trades program has its own fund, which now has about $150,000 in it.
The building will have four separate bays – one each for maintenance, the construction program, athletics and performing arts. “All those areas are kind of short on storage at the high school,” Davis said.
The maintenance bay will be larger than the other three so that lawn care and snow removal equipment can be stored there. The maintenance and construction bays will have overhead gas radiant heat. The other two bays will not be heated.
Davis presented cost estimates with a disclaimer that they were very preliminary and that the cost could change depending on lumber and steel prices. He said he used prices from the website of a large home improvement retailer due to a short deadline for information he was asked for.
He said he planned to purchase as much as he could locally and named Tri-County Lumber.
Board member John McConnell, a successful contractor, encouraged him to compare the price Tri-County would give the school with the price from the large retailer that offers an 11 percent rebate. “You spend $70,000 with an 11 percent rebate, that pays for a lot of stuff for inside,” McConnell said.
Other board members encouraged Davis to do as much local purchasing as possible.
Funding for the storage building will come from the district’s physical plant and equipment levy (PPEL) and local option sales tax (LOST) fund.
The board revisited a decision made last spring to give associates and building secretaries four 50-cent raises during the 2022-23 school year, dependent on them completing professional development (PD) activities. New superintendent Brett Abbotts asked the board to re-issue the contracts with an immediate hourly wage increase of $2 an hour, with the requirement to complete four PD days during the year.
Associates who work with special education students will be in one group for the PD, and the general education associates and secretaries will be in another group. The Area Education Agency will assist in tailoring the PD to meet local needs. The PD will be offered in person the same days teachers have PD (non-attendance days for students, and previously unpaid days for associates.) There will be some flexibility in how the PD is completed, but all staff involved are expected to do it.
The board unanimously agreed to the new plan.
The board approved hiring Deb Wolterman as assistant cheerleading coach, a new position. Shannon Black will be head cheerleading coach. Abbotts explained that because the basketball and wrestling seasons overlap, parent volunteers were serving as supervisor at events. The new position will assure paid school staff has that responsibility.
The board approved a new policy for employee use of cell phones. The policy is copied from an Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB) suggested policy, Abbotts said. In past years, elementary teachers use their personal cell phones if they’re on playground duty and need to summon help. Teachers in a classroom might also use their phones to call for help. “Something like that can spiral and those are things we don’t want our teachers getting into. With secretaries, there could be concerns there as well,” he said.
Abbotts found a solution for the playground problem, though. The school has purchased 2-way radios, and someone on the playground will have a radio as well as someone in the office.
“We have one for kids,” board member Bonnie Silbaugh said about the cell phone policy. “It’s probably good to have one for employees, too.”
The board approved a services agreement with Classroom Clinic for mental tele-health services for the coming school year at a cost of $13,125. Classroom Clinic was the provider last year and did not increase cost. Teachers or staff can recommend that a student have the tele-health services; parents must sign a waiver before services begin. There is no cost to students or parents.
Abbotts told the board that price is much lower than urban districts pay for similar services.
After discussion, the board selected five from a list of more than 30 possible legislative priorities the IASB should work toward in the coming year.
Those priorities are:
– Continued progress in the development of rigorous content standards and benchmarks that reflect real world knowledge and skills students need to graduate and prepare for college or enter the work force;
– Preschool funding increase from the current .5 weighting to 1.0 weighting and give districts maximum flexibility in assigning costs for the program;
– Establish comprehensive community mental health systems to offer preventative and treatment services and comprehensive school mental health programs;
– Additional tools to attract individuals to the teaching profession, especially in areas of shortage; and
– Setting supplemental state aid at a rate that sufficiently supports local districts’ efforts to plan, create and sustain world-class schools.
