School board meets at Green River High

The January meeting of the Emery County School District Board of Education was held at Green River High School.
Superintendent Larry Davis presented GRHS student Lindsey McFarlane with a District certificate of recognition for recently being a recipient of the UHSAA Academic-All-State award for Girls 1A Volleyball. Members of the Board also expressed their congratulations to McFarlane.
Ryan Hepworth presented the College and Career Ready school counseling report for Green River High School. He was excited to report three new academic/career pathways are now available at GRHS. Kathy Brady and Hepworth have completed 11th and 12th grade CCR plan interviews with all students. Hepworth briefly reported on his data project that has focused on basic college information and understanding.
A FAFSA parent night was held in October. GRHS now has a Student Advisory Committee that has been valuable in providing the counseling department insights from the student perspective.
Superintendent Davis recommended to the Board that the following individuals be approved for the positions indicated:
Rob Smith: Head Baseball Coach Emery High School
Joleen Begay: Library Aide, 5.9 Hr Canyon View Middle School
Angelena Behling: Library Aide, 5.9 Hr San Rafael Middle School
Andrea Erwin: Resource and Preschool Aide Book Cliff Elementary School
Gayna Salinas: ELL Aide and Ednet Facilitator Green River High School
Chandler Peacock, Automotive teacher at Emery High, was approved to take five students to the annual competition in Hobbs, New Mexico, on February 5-6.
All costs, including hotels and transportation are paid for by USU-Eastern. The automotive program has had excellent success at this competition in the past.
Principal Kayce Fluckey welcomed all in attendance to GRHS. She mentioned recent facility upgrades to the school, including a new trophy case, a newly painted library, and an upgraded baseball field. She recognized several of her faculty and staff members who were present, commenting individually on their importance to the high school.
Dale Roundy, along with student Lindsey McFarlane, presented a robotics demonstration. Principal Fluckey indicated that her faculty and staff have been working diligently on PLC’s. They have also developed a new mission statement, vision and goals for the school. She shared these with the Board of Education.
Principal Fluckey recognized members of the student council in attendance, adding that their focus has been on service projects. She is happy that the school is now about to offer robotics and other elective classes. Staffing changes have also allowed Language Arts and Math courses to be offered every day for grades 7-10. Students are also using the Aleks Math program. A brief video presentation was shown, highlighting student participation in several classes and activities. President Johansen thanked Principal Fluckey for her report.
Principal JR Jones of Book Cliff Elementary thanked the Board of Education for coming to Green River.
He reported his staff have been involved with PLC’s and it has been productive for each grade level. Students participated in Veterans Day by making pictures for Veterans and handing the pictures and flags to the Veterans during the school program. Book Cliff will shortly be adding an afternoon preschool session. The school science fair is coming up on the 29th.
Principal Jones mentioned Book Cliff is starting to develop a student council. There will be an upcoming student art show in affiliation with the John Wesley Powell Museum. Staff are also working to put a school chorus together, with many students interested. Principal Jones indicated the Kindergarten class is doing great and performed very well on a recent assessment. The Kindergarten students will be singing the national anthem at an upcoming boys basketball game. He expressed his gratitude for his faculty and staff, commenting they have a great comradery and work well together. President Johansen thanked Principal Jones for sharing many of the good things happening at his school.
Superintendent Davis expressed his appreciation to Principal Fluckey and Principal Jones for their commendable leadership. He mentioned the second term full-day PLC meetings will be Jan. 12. Elementary PLC teams will be at Cottonwood Elementary, with secondary teams housed at Emery High. He discussed the tremendous growth in the District robotics program. He explained future funding for the robotics program has been a concern. He was pleased to report recent discussions have given the District reason to believe additional funding will be secured for the next three-five years.
Superintendent Davis reported an Emery County team with ECSD representation will be meeting with Governor Herbert to discuss how the “25,000 Jobs for Rural Utah” initiative can benefit Emery County. The top priority for the County team has been identified as continuing development of the STEM Ed/ CTE Pathways programs. Superintendent Davis noted the District evaluation committee has been meeting to discuss procedural changes to the evaluation process with the goal of providing a friendlier approach to evaluation. The committee is also looking to change the stakeholder surveys. He also discussed a recent USSA resolution in support of encouraging people to get the “Our Schools Now” initiative on the ballot.
School board information provided by Emery County School District