School board hosts meeting at Castle Dale Elementary

The Emery County School District met for their September meeting at Castle Dale Elementary. Superintendent Larry Davis submitted names for approval: Andrea Erwin, special education aide at Book Cliff Elementary. Felicia Nielsen, special education aide at Cottonwood Elementary. Yolanda James and Belinda Peacock, Emery High EdNet facilitators. USU Eastern no longer pays for the EdNet facilitators.
Principal Melinda Durrant gave the principals report. She said, “We have wonderful faculty and staff at Castle Dale Elementary. We lost Marty Prettyman to the middle school transition. We gained two teachers, Jamie Anderson and Angie Barton. We share Mrs. Barton with Cottonwood Elementary. She is the kindergarten teacher.
The theme for this school year is Reaching for the Stars. Stars stands for, Success, Trust, Achievement, Respect and Service. Students receive warm fuzzies for doing good things. They get to put them in a bucket. When the bucket is full there will be a party. We are continuing our positive office referrals.
We are also learning life skills through a skit called Marvin and Jessie. Next week the skit will be about peace making. The teachers and students are using the iPads and the Chrome Books. The teachers are using Schoolcity to track their students progress. They can see areas where students are strong and areas where students need improvement.
The robotics club is going well at the school. Interest has grown since last year. This year there will be three levels of the robotics club. Last year two robotics teams went to the state competition. Amanda Frandsen won coach/mentor of the year. One team took first place for core values at the region competition. The PTO donated pickleball nets for the playground,” said Durrant.
Business administrator, Jared Black reported the benefits fair went well. The audit is being done this week. During the audit each year I have a ton of appreciation for our employees.
Superintendent Davis thanked Board Member, Laurel Johansen for her remarks at the opening institute. The student enrollment was down on the first day of school. “We are down 29 students. The numbers may have increased since the first day. The deadline for WPU reporting is Oct. 1.
“I am watching HB 125. It will not have a big impact on the ECSD. It concerns students residency for enrollment purposes. If the bill passes the board will have to decide if the residency of the student will be decided by the school board or deferred to the superintendent. If the students residency status needs to go through the school board it could be a month before the student could enroll,” said Davis.
The school board agreed it would be a good idea to have the superintendent decide if the student is considered a resident for enrollment purposes. This bill will be heard in the state senate soon.
The testing data from last year is being compiled and will be presented at the October 4 school board meeting. This meeting will start at 6 p.m. at the Emery High library.