School board hears reports on summer school and budgeting process
By Bobbi Mlynar
Originally published 01:22 p.m., January 10, 2008
Updated 01:22 p.m., January 10, 2008
Reports dominated the agenda Wednesday evening for the Emporia board of education meeting. The session was held at Emporia High School, after a dinner and meeting with the EHS StuCo members.
Associate Superintendent George Abel reported on improvements shown by summer school students, according to Measures of Academic Performance tests.
“We’re proud to report we had slightly over 50 percent of the students participating in summer school that either held their own … or they actually improved their scores over that time,” Abel said. “So, we feel good about that.”
Abel said that the students who most needed summer school were offered the opportunity to attend, up to the maximum number of students who could be accommodated by the teachers available.
Summer school, he said, is essential for the academically needy students to maintain or improve their performance, rather than lose or forget skills without classes over the summer.
“There’s lots of research that says many kids, in fact most kids, are going to lose learning over the summer,” Abel said. “Those kids that are going to lose the most are your most needy students, as far as learning.”
A total of 101 students enrolled in the reading classes, and 15 who had been identified as needing summer school did not attend. The mathematics classes had 120 students enrolled, and 22 who were identified as needing help did not attend.
Abel said the district had been able to compare the scores of students who attended summer school and those who did not.
More than half of the summer school group showed improved MAP scores in mathematics from kindergarten through eighth grade, according to results provided by Abel. Among the group that needed to attend summer school but could not, slightly more than one-third of the students improved.
Reading scores from the summer-school group showed almost 38.5 percent as improving and almost 13 percent showing no change in skills. Slightly over 46 percent of the students showed a decrease in skills.
Board members also heard a report from Assistant Superintendent Susan Hernandez on the Performance Based Budgeting process that began in the fall and will culminate with reviews by the district PBB team. Four meetings are planned, beginning on Jan. 31 and ending next month.
Hernandez said that the PBB approach to budgeting has helped the district contain costs in recent years.
Conversations first are held with administrators and school personnel about needs of the individual buildings or departments. A district-wide plan is formed after the common themes are identified, then parents and community members become involved in the discussions with building principals. Input also is solicited from site councils and parent-teacher organizations.
The committees discuss needs for individual schools and help find ways to stay within the budget guidelines. If a committee decides the school and its students need a specific change or improvement, for example, the committee also must look for ways to reduce other areas of the building’s budget to pay for the improvement.
Board President Grant Riles introduced teachers Heather Caswell and Andy Battenfield to recognize their recent professional achievements.
Battenfield, a Hopkins Star Performer Award winner this year, was named 2007 Outstanding Young Professional by the Kansas Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance this fall.
Caswell completed certification for literacy in early and middle childhood education from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. She also received her master’s degree in December from Kansas State University in Manhattan.