Rich County School Board

Anita Weston, Reporter

Rich Civic Times 

RANDOLPH, Utah.  April 15, 2014.  The Board was informed that the new bus has been paid for.  It will be delivered the first week in May.

The request from the County to have the School Board work with the Redistricting Committee was considered.  It was decided that Pete Cornia and Tammy Calder serve on the Committee.  They determined two from the School Board would be sufficient.

The Legislature passed a bill that made it possible for parents to sign a form to have their students opt out of any state wide summative testing.  The term SAGE Testing had been used. However, a great many teachers select test questions from the SAGE data base.  By using that name on the form will probably confuse people into thinking that allowing their children to opt out of State and Federal exams is a good thing and make it impossible for teachers to use those questions.  This would hinder much of the teaching that is taking place, particularly with teachers who use the feedback from the SAGE data base to review and retest in order to check student progress. 

It was decided that the Opt Out Form use the term “state wide summative testing” in place of the word SAGE.  This would follow the state requirements and yet keep teaching materials available to teachers.

There have been two people who have applied for the position of Director of Food Services.  The application date ends this coming Thursday, and a decision will be made after that closing date.

All members of the Board will be at spring graduation.  However, Burdette Weston and Scott Sabey will be the two individuals from the board who will be handing out the diplomas.

There was a discussion of the summer maintenance projects.  It had been suggested that the monies currently held in the building reserve fund be used.  If they use this money, the public must be given 30-days notice by the Board of this decision.  However, most schools no longer maintain a building reserve fund—these monies are kept in the capital projects account.  If the board would transfer these funds into the capital projects account and use these monies first, there would be no need to give public notice.  The Board decided to use the money from the capital projects fund to do the summer maintenance projects and take the necessary steps to combine the building reserve fund and capital projects fund.

It was reported that bleachers for all three schools—the middle school, the high school new gym, and the old gym will be purchased.  The cost will be approximately $136,000.  These bleachers will be motorized and will meet all code requirements.  This averages out to about $90 to $110 per seat.

Some of the gym floors need to be redone.  The middle school floor was done a few years ago and is fine.  However, the floors in the other two buildings need to be done at about $15,000 each.  As a general rule of thumb, the floors should have about 3 – 4 seal coats before they are sanded and refinished.  One of the floors currently has over 10 coats of sealer.  It is definitely time to refinish these floors. 

There is a great deal of cement work that needs to be taken care of this summer.  Estimates of the amount of cement needed are difficult to determine.

Putting carbon monoxide detectors will be easy in the middle school.  However, it is going to be much more difficult in the Randolph Elementary school.  It was felt that the High School and the Randolph Elementary need to have separate systems for this.

The Board asked the maintenance supervisor to bring a list of the final figures for the possible projects to be undertaken this summer.  They would like to know numbers so that they can prioritize these items and make a more informed decision than is possible at the present time.

The request was made to buy a new drivers education vehicle.  There is enough money in the fund since no cars have been purchased during the past two years.  They would like to get a Tarus or a Chevey Impala.  The school has two cars that can be rotated out.  They are the same model and make.  One of the cars will require a new engine.  It was thought if someone wanted to buy one, they could perhaps purchase the second car for parts.  The Board decided that they would sell them separately, but make sure those purchasing the cars understand what the problem areas are.  Thus, the motion was made to purchase a new car and sell the two older cars to the public.

The Child Nutrition Policy will continue as in the past.  It has worked well.  If school lunches are not paid for by parents at a certain date, they can be informed that they will have to go to small claims court.  This has worked well in the past and certainly will not cause the district to run into the problems like occurred in Salt Lake where children’s’ lunches were taken away.

From the feedback received from the public, Calendar C has been selected for the next school year.  School will be starting on the 20^th.  Teachers will be at school on the 18^th and the 19^th.  There will be three school days that week—including having all the students attend that Friday.  There is only one other Friday that students will need to attend during the school year—the last day of school in the spring.  This calendar allows a good Christmas break and seemed to be the most desired by the public.

There was a Regional Meeting Conference held by the USBA Association.  Those Board Members who attended said the meetings were good.

There were four students from Rich County who were selected by the Utah High School Athletic Association to be All Stators.  Skyler Argyle and McKay Jarman were selected in Basketball.  Kami Lamborn was chosen in Girl’s Basketball.  Hackin Cornia was selected in Wrestling.

The Spring Wellness Social will be held in Laketown on the last Thursday before the last day of school.  Mrs. Jackson will also be honored at this time for the tremendous job she has done as the Food Services Director.

The May Board meeting will be held May 21, and the June Meeting will be held June 17.

The interest based facilitation team will be handled by Ralph Johnson and Scott Sabey.  The insurance program has been out to bid.  The results of the bidding process will be made known on the 24^th.