Principal Tom Baltzer of Huntington Elementary welcomed the Emery County School Board to the school for their monthly meeting on March 3. Baltzer began with a run down of the school programs and activities. He mentioned that Wendy Hodson, a teacher at the school, was instrumental in setting up many programs to help the students with reading. Hodson has set up the peer tutoring program in which students from the junior high come to the school and listen to students in lower grades read. Baltzer noted that Hodson has set up the Literacy Library and attends the Literacy Corner meetings as a representative of the school.
Baltzer said that the faculty has discussed the trust lands money and have decided to put it to work in the math department. He also stated that Huntington Elementary has an excellent faculty and staff and the test scores are up significantly.
One project Baltzer mentioned to the board for consideration for the summer, is the condition of the lawn. He stated that the lawn may require fencing and reseeding. This may be a good opportunity to do the repairs to the sprinkling system, then proceed with the landscaping work.
Another project that has been completed is the painting of the interior of the school. He said it has made a world of difference and the staff likes the improvement. As for the projected number of kindergartners registering for next year, the figure is 59.
Karen Bishop, Adele Huntington and Nancy Karpowitz were at the meeting to report on the counseling department activities. Karpowitz gave a power point presentation explaining the new statewide focus of the Comprehensive Guidance Program. She explained that the schools are evaluated on 12 standards, involving such issues as communications with the school board and between schools, Utah State Office of Education training, student-counselor ratios, meeting of student needs, and interagency cooperation. Karpowitz also explained the programs components and objectives, the review process, their priorities, goals, concerns and updates. She stated that San Rafael Junior High school and Green River schools would be evaluated sometime in April. Emery High School will be evaluated next fall.
Huntington showed the board a professionally produced pamphlet that addresses the issues faced by students entering high school. The booklet looks at situations that face all high school students and offers solutions to some of the problems that they face. She requested the board to look over this pamphlet and consider making it a part of the material handed out to the new students at registration time. The board agreed to consider this proposal.
Kirk Sitterud, superintendent, requested the board consider two applications for early retirement. One was from Karen Brown, the district speech and hearing specialist and the other was from Wendy Hodson. After some consideration of the guidelines, both applications were approved.
The board then approved the ninth graders in the FCLA class to attend the state convention. Also, the board approved a $10 safety fee for the use of equipment in the science classes to be added to the registration fees at the beginning of the school year. This fee would apply to junior high school science classes and would be a one time fee that would carry from year to year while the student is in junior high.
The next school board meeting will be held April 7 at Cleveland Elementary at 7 p.m.
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