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School board hears from Emery High principal Davis

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"Counselor Ashley Jensen, Aubreyona Migliori, Courtney Luke, Jayla Weston, Jessica Olsen, Jazmin Sacco-Stoddard and Jennee Mangum from Four Corners."

By Alice Wadley Staff Writer

The Emery County School District held their monthly meeting at Emery High School. The school board approved the independent auditor’s report. School board president Laurel Johansen commented, the report was in great order with very few findings.
Superintendent Kirk Sitterud submitted names for approval, Dallice Webster and Kimberly Andrus.
The Emery High School Youth Coalition group requested travel to Washington DC for leadership training, Feb. 1-5. Ashley Jensen, school Counselor said the group uses the SHARP survey to identify areas to improve within the school. One thing we are focusing on is improving communication between teachers and parents. The Youth Coalition members in attendance were allowed to tell about the purpose and goals of their program. They hope to go to Washington DC to find out how to improve the EHS program. All travel expenses will be covered by Four Corners and Partnerships for Success.
Dayna Terry presented the counseling and guidance report to the board. The counselors are working with sophomores to complete academic and career plans. Last year the school added the machine tool program. Eight seniors went to Snow College to meet with program representatives. Two of the students will receive academic scholarships from Snow College. There has been an increase in mental health referrals and suicide indicators are increasing. Jonathan Fauver from Four Corners works with students. We would like to have a lesson on suicide prevention at the school.
Principal Larry Davis gave the principal’s report. He gave the board a copy of the student handbook. The handbook contains the school policies. It helps students make their way into EHS. The drug testing policy is in the second full year. It has been a good thing. We recently had a EHS presentation of Shrek the Musical. It was a quality production and the highest grossing play we have ever done.
Four students received the academic all-state awards: Camrey Johnson, Jessica Mason and Jessica Olsen for ladies volleyball and Travis Fehlberg for boys cross country.
We had the homecoming parade for the first time in 25 years. We started at the aquatic center and made our way to the high school. We invited Castle Dale Elementary to watch the parade. Superintendant Sitterud and his wife participated as well. Over half of the student body was in the parade. It was a lot of fun and I would encourage the students to do it again next year.
The girls soccer team in their first year qualified for the state tournament. They finished third in the region. Coach Erik Nielsen said we had a group of mostly freshman and sophomore girls. They worked really hard to make this team successful.
The Spardettes are always entertaining to watch. They performed their Halloween routine at the final home football game and performed for Castle Dale Elementary. The boys cross country team finished first in region and second in state. The boys showed a good team effort at state. The EHS chorus held their first concert in October. They sang patriotic songs and honored our military. The football team returned to the state playoffs by finishing fourth in the 3A North division. We play in a division where most of the schools are larger than us.
Principal Davis presented the SAGE results and the PACE report for EHS. We earned a C grade for the SAGE testing. We are still transitioning to the new core standards. The SAGE tests allows students the option of opting out of the test. We had 27 opt out of the language arts test and 33 opt out of the math test. It should be noted, 93 percent of the students who opted out of the tests are honor students. This could have skewed the results, but we don’t use this as an excuse. We have seen continual improvements in all areas of testing. Fifty-four percent of juniors and seniors earned credits through concurrent enrollment and 63 percent took advantage of the Career and Technical Education courses. Dayna helped us get involved in the metals and welding program at Snow College. With 63 percent taking the CTE courses we will put more money into the courses.
The enrollment at EHS is currently 413 students, down from 434 students last year. We have gained some new students this week. Next year we project enrollment to be 431 students.
We have a new language arts teacher, Brandi Tuttle. Mike Kava and JoAnn Farrer retired this year. Farrer will retire after the holidays and we are advertising for a custodial position.
The counseling department and the community council have been able to add an advanced placement computer programming class and a math 1050 class. We are trying to add an introduction to programming class and other STEM classes. The STEM classes will be supported by a grant from the Utah STEM academy.
School administrators are certified evaluators and fully trained on the USOE OnTrack evaluation system. Evaluations are underway and we are in compliance with the new state law.
We have really worked on student involvement this year, participation in clubs, athletics and organizations is up. We have a very active administrative team. They support our drug awareness campaign. They are always visiting the learning strategies classes. The school is almost done with the SHARP survey presentations. The homework class is three nights a week for three hours. EHS has an integrity council. This is set up to help with integrity problems. It also rewards students for doing positive things. They receive a certificate and a candy bar for positive behavior.
Superintendent Sitterud gave his report. The Utah school board convention is coming soon. The survey is available online until Friday.
Neal Peacock, representing the Emery Education Association addressed the school board. He said the boys golf team had their best finish ever in state, finishing sixth. We had our first all-state boys golfer, Race Nielson. The integrity council has been great. At the Shakespeare Festival this year there was construction going on which blocked off the handicapped access. Three students noticed a woman struggling to get to the bottom of the stairs. They helped her down the stairs. When offered their reward they all turned it down and said they didn’t do it to be rewarded. They did it because it was the right thing to do.
The teacher evaluation system is not well received by the teachers. It doesn’t help the students at all. It makes teacher information delivery systems. It makes the teachers focus on testing and a student is just a number. Right now there are currently 18 class days spent testing. The San Juan School district had a turnover of 30 teachers this year. They have an average turnover of 36 teachers a year. They hired a company from New Jersey to help straighten it out. It didn’t work.
It used to be teachers came from teaching families. My parents had 11 children. My dad was a teacher. Six out of 11 children are teachers. It used to be seven, but he left the teaching profession. Now there are 58 grandchildren and none of them are teachers.
We have been encouraged by teachers and others to tell the state we will not do this.
This will not help anything. We will obey the law. I encourage everyone to call your representatives and tell them this is a bad for kids and everyone involved. There was an evaluation system already in place. The lawmaker who proposed this bill has resigned from office and we are stuck with it. It takes many hours to fill out the paperwork.
The school board thanked Principal Davis and Mr. Peacock for their dedication to Emery High.

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