Emery school district honors teachers

By Alice Wadley
Staff Writer

The Emery County School district met for their June 20 meeting at the district office in Huntington. First on the agenda was to recognize the students who received the academic all-state award. Lainee Jensen and Addison Healy received recognition for their respective sports. Other students who received the award, but were not present were James Behling, Landon Fairbanks and Elexis Dalton.
The district also recognized the employees and volunteers of the year. The winners were already recognized at their schools in front of their students and peers. The volunteer of the year is Pam Howard. She is actively involved with the Parent Teacher Organization at Cottonwood Elementary. She is the PTO president at the school. She enjoys dressing up in costumes and having fun with the students.
The classified employee of the year is Kerri Allred. She works at the district office. She is responsible for paying the bills and keeps the district office running smoothly. She is a great asset to have at the district office.
The secondary teacher of the year is Dale Roundy. He teaches science at Green River High School. He not only teaches at the high school, he volunteers his time after school to tutor students at the community center. He started the robotics program at GRHS and the program continues to grow. Mr. Roundy and his family traveled from Green River to receive the award.
The elementary teacher of the year and the district teacher of the year is Stephanie Roper. She is a title one teacher at Ferron and Cottonwood elementary schools. Mrs. Roper has worked for the district for 25 years. She is an advocate for her students. She works effectively in many collaborative teams and is data-driven to find the most effective instruction for students. Mrs. Roper will be honored at the Utah Rural Schools Association at their annual banquet in Cedar City. Mrs. Roper is also eligible to enter the Utah teacher of the year program.
Superintendent Larry Davis recognized the adult high school graduates. The district had five adults receive their diploma through the program.
Principal Kayce Fluckey is in the process of updating the GRHS discipline policy. After looking at the Emery High policy, she decided the GRHS policy was in need of revision. Senate Bill 132 requires a three tier system and documentation be in place to refer a student to juvenile court. The concern is Green River having access to evidence based programs. Principal Fluckey will continue to work on the discipline policy and continue to do more research on the evidence based programs available.
The school board opened the public hearing for the budget. Business administrator, Jared Black gave a presentation on the budget. The assessed valuation is $2,035,863,354. The estimated fall enrollment is 2,177. The total budgeted revenue for fiscal year 2019 original is $27,799,345 and the total for fiscal year 2018 final is $28,323,913. This year there are two new levies, the equity pupil rate and the WPU value rate. These levies will not bring any revenue to the school district. Black reviewed the state and federal major sources of revenue. Black also gave a breakdown of the budgeted expenditures. The changes for the 2019 budget were: The revised property tax levies. No retirement rate increase. The health insurance premium had an increase of 9.1 percent. There was no judgment levy. The elimination of the non K-12/Addition of special revenue funds. The non K-12 funds are now budgeted in the general fund. There were other accounting code changes with the recent legislative session. The school board approved the budget as it was presented and closed the public hearing.
Superintendent Davis submitted names for approval: Lance Whitesel, Canyon View Middle School and GRHS counselor. Ryan Hepworth will move from the counselor’s position to teaching social science at GRHS. Yory Allred, EHS girl’s soccer head coach. Earl Hales, full-time custodian at GRHS and Book Cliff Elementary. Ren Hatt, GRHS, language arts teacher. Ashley Reyes, BCES full-time teacher. The school board approved the names. There are still some vacancies in the district, GRHS will need a full-time teacher and a part-time registrar for the GRHS counseling department.
Rick Nobbe requested travel for the marching band to participate in the Days of 47 parade on July 24. It will be an overnight trip and it will be chaperoned. Approximately 30 students will participate. The students will raise money leading up to the parade to offset the cost of participation. A trip to Lagoon and overnight accommodations are included in the cost.
Principal Fluckey requested the school board look at the extracurricular pay schedule for GRHS.
Principal Yvonne Jensen, requested a modification to the shop fee at CVMS. It is somewhat confusing. At the beginning of the year the fee is $10. Parents are often confused when at the beginning of the year they are asked to pay another $35 for shop projects. We would like the entire shop fee to be part of the annual registration at the beginning of the year. The school board approved the request.
Principal Jensen would like to have other extracurricular activities at the middle schools. She would like to have a middle school cross country team and archery team. If we have more extracurricular activities more students will be involved. Middle school cross country is a two mile race.
Helper Middle School has a very successful archery team. Coach Laslo is willing to help us get started and the DWR is willing to do the training. The school board will look into expanding the extracurricular activities for the middle schools with consideration to coaches, cost and transportation.
Superintendent Davis gave his report. He reported, the district will keep the same Professional Learning Community days as last year. The full day PLC and the midterm early out will remain in place. The firefighters are using EHS as their base camp. Jared and I went to EHS and signed an agreement with the DNR. We are proud to provide accommodations to them. The firefighters are camped out on the softball field right now. They are required to change every week. We appreciate the custodians putting their summer projects on hold to accommodate the firefighters. We are working with USU Eastern to get education pathways at EHS.
The talent rated grant we were working on to establish a medical pathway between the school district, Pinnacle Academy and the Castleview Hospital was not approved. It made it through the first round. The application is now in limbo. Dr. Gary Straquadine is working to broadcast the CNA class to EHS.
Jeff Winget is the new Emery Education Association president.
Principal Fluckey reported she went to an educational pathways conference in Las Vegas. She found out Utah is very aggressive in their pathways programs. Many of the teachers were impressed with the Utah pathways. Fluckey also mentioned we need to work closer with business leaders. We need to bring business leaders to the schools and show them what we are doing with the pathways program. Many business leaders don’t know what we are doing in the schools.
The next school board meeing will be July 18 at 7 p.m. at the district office in Huntington.