The Emery County School District held their monthly meeting at Castle Dale Elementary. Superintendent Kirk Sitterud asked the board to approve Donna Cramer as the resource assistant at Castle Dale Elementary and Kayce Fluckey as the interim principal at Green River High School. The district will advertise for a part-time special education teacher at GRHS to replace Fluckey until a new principal is hired next year. The board approved a letter of resignation from Principal Nolan Johnson. He is retiring from the ECSD after 30 years in the district. He is taking a position in New Mexico.
Superintendent Sitterud asked for approval of the Utah Consolidated Application Plan. The plan will bring approximately $1.2 million to the school district. Data is compiled based on the districts greatest needs, at risk students, safety and school climate. Five or six plans need to be submitted. The information is obtained from the schools and the school counselors. Once the plan is approved by the state and the school district gets the money. It takes several hundred hours to put the plan together.
The school district has been working with the schools and principals on the educator evaluation program. It was introduced as part of Senate Bill 64. It was suppose to be implemented but has not received the final approval. The law requires implementation this year. As of now, there is no instruction or calculation of teacher ratings. The first set of evaluations is due Nov. 15 for teachers with less that three years of teaching experience. The evaluation process is complex and places a great deal of stress on principals and teachers. The evaluations are tied to teacher pay. There are new core curriculum standards. To tie teacher pay to the evaluations isn’t good right now. We would like to hold off until next year’s pay schedule.
The school board discussed substitute teacher pay schedule. It is difficult to find licensed substitute teachers to teach long term. The board voted to increase substitute pay. It will start immediately but the pay raise will not be retroactive.
Principal Melinda Durrant gave the school update for Castle Dale Elementary. She said we have an amazing staff. We have new staff this year Kalynn Fail and Donna Cramer. If you will look around the building you will see pictures of starfish. It relates to a story about a little boy and starfish. “Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!” As teachers we have the power to change lives and that story reminds us of that.
We are recognizing students with positive office referrals. A good note is mailed to parents, whose children who do well academically or have displayed good behavior. In the future, we would like to get an iPad lab.
The Castle Dale Fire Department visited the school. They taught the children about fire safety. The students were able to get into the fire trucks and use the sirens and the lights.
We held a better things to do than drug workshop. We had Four Corners, animals, the Emery County Ambulance, Emery County Sheriff’s Office, Civil Air Patrol and Guardian Flight. The kids were really excited to see the helicopter take off and wave to the crew as they departed.
We are in the process of having our checkers tournament. The winners are given prizes. We will hold the chess tournament in the near future. The spelling bee and the geo bee will be coming soon. This year for the speed stacks competition the students get to chose a charity where a donation will be sent. The donation will go to the Emery County Food Bank.
On Veterans Day the students participated in a Veterans Day program. Superintendent Sitterud gave the business report. The audit report will be presented at the Dec. 2 meeting.
A survey will be available on the district website to all community members to give input on restructuring the grades. Scenarios include: moving the 9th grade to high school. Moving the 6th grade to middle school and having a 6th-8th middle school. Keeping the 6th grade in elementary school and having a 7th-8th grade middle school. There is a space available for comments, concerns and additional input. Bookcliff Elementary and Green River High School will keep their same grade structure. The survey will be available until Dec. 4.
Rachel Lund with the Upward Bound approached the school board about the program. Upward Bound is a federally funded program designed to get low income students into college. We would like to have a better program at Canyon View Junior High. The CVJH students have to go to Emery High to receive tutoring. This has created a problem at the school, as students are leaving early and missing classes to attend the tutoring at EHS. There are 60 students in Emery, Carbon and Grand counties. We are working through the counselor to get students involved in the program. The problem is there is only one math tutor and the tutor is at Emery High. Lund has advertised for math tutors, but has been unable to find one.
Once a month the students go on a tour to a different college in Utah. This year we went to see Thriller. We are going to go to Cedar City and learn about their engineering programs and go to Dixie college and learn about their medical programs. We do parent workshops. We are required to have 700 hours of face to face time with parents and students each year. Lund would like to work with the school district to allow for the Upward Bound students from CVJH to ride the activity bus to EHS for tutoring. She will keep the district advised of the program and hopes to find a math tutor for CVJH.
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