Site improvements, software purchases dominate meeting
Board tables some requests
By Bobbi Mlynar
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Student progress can be tracked throughout the year as a result of a contract approved Wednesday evening at a meeting of the Emporia board of education.
The board voted 7-0 in favor of a contract for Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment tests for kindergarten through 12th grade.
The contract renewed an existing agreement with Northwest Evaluations and Assessments at a total cost of $47,500.
George Able, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, told the board that the additional tests helped measure students' progress and make interventions quickly instead of waiting until the end of the year for state assessments.
Teachers believe the MAP assessments provide valuable information in a timely way, Abel said.
"They feel like if we don't continue that we are going to be missing some information to diagnose where the kids are at," Abel said. The MAP tests "fill in this gap and help us really target some specific things that students are missing, and allow us to adjust what we are doing."
Abel also requested the board consider a change in software to help teachers pull data to compare individual students' present and past test scores simultaneously.
The district currently uses Performance Matters software that, Abel said, is not presenting data comparisons adequately. Abel said that the Performance Matters company had promised the software would be improved next year.
"We don't think that their proise that it will be in place next year carries a lot of weight," Abel said.
He told the board that Pearson Education's "Inform" software appears to be able to perform the functions that the current software has yet to do. He said that a three-year contract would be less-expensive, but that a one-year contract might be the better choice, to ensure that the software can perform as described.
The Inform software interacts well with existing Power School software, which enables parents to access their children's records on-line.
Board member Mike Crouch asked whether parents would be able to use Power School to access children's test scores in the Inform records. Members also discussed the costs that would be involved and asked Abel to bring back more information about software details so the purchased could be considered later.
Associate Superintendent of Business Susan Hernandez asked for board approval to repair the gymnasium floor at Lowther North Intermediate School. The floor, which had been refinished, was damaged when city sewers backed up into the gymnasium during a rain storm.
Hernandez said that insurance will pay $25,000 of the cost. The district has applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance with the balance of the loss.
The board accepted a bid of $100,975 from Acme Floor Company.
The board also unanimously approved a low bid from Emporia Construction for site improvements at Emporia High School and Emporia Middle School. The bid includes $28,400 to repair the EHS access drive, $18,500 for the EMS driveway, $34,000 for the EHS/EMS walking trail and an additional $9,100 to add surface to the walking trail, for a total of $90,000.
The board removed a $42,000 item for removing the track at EHS. The recommendation for removal came from the capital outlay committee, which had studied the issue in January and February, after EHS track practices were moved to the EMS track.
In the interim, the board voted to introduce competitive sports to seventh-grade students at EMS.
Members discussed several options, including overlaying the track, removing it, or waiting to see how the EMS athletic programs develop, to see what would best suit the schools' needs.
"We spent a lot of money trying to fix those old tennis courts that we should have given up on," Superintendent John Heim said. "I'm hesitant to tear the track out, too."
He said, however, that an overlay may not be the answer.
Crouch suggested sending the information back to the committee to study. The motion was approved unanimously.
"The question of middle school athletics was not on the table when we studied it," Hernandez said. "All of these issues are more intertwined now than they were when we studied it in January and February.
Before the board meeting, the district honored outgoing board members and an interim board member with a reception. Jerry Fair and Kevin Nelson did not seek re-election. Former member Jeffery Larsen resigned earlier this year after he was appointed as a Lyon County District Court Judge. Former board member Carol Schaefer agreed to serve the remainder of his term as an interim board member.
Newly elected board members Angie Schreiber, Glenn Strickland and Mike Helbert will be seated formally next month.
The board approved a consent agenda that included:
-- a request to accept a $5,000 donation from State Farm Insurance to purchase literacy materials at the intermediate schools. Agent Pete Euler coordinated the donation.
-- a $41,000 purchase of "ReadAbout," a program that uses technology to assist in reading programs. The State Farm donation, plus $36,000 from building funds and Title funds at the Lowther schools, will be used to make the purchase.
-- approved a full-time English as a Second Language position at Timmerman to help the district recruit a teacher. The district had been unable to fill a part-time ELA position at the school.
-- approved purchase of a new tool van at a cost of no more than $20,000.
In other action, the board:
-- approved a contract with Head Start.
-- approved purchase of an additional 220 D630 Dell laptops at a cost of $1,337 each, for a total of $294,140.