School staff scores with YouTube video

The Odessa School Board met Wednesday, October 23, for its regular monthly meeting, with board members engaging in a workshop just prior to the meeting to review board policies.

Bi-County Professional development

On October 4, area teachers and para-professionals participated in a Bi-county regional professional development day, where National Principle of the Year, Trevor Green from Toppenish, presented the keynote address. Each school district gave a presentation on programs they were proud of and wanted to share. Odessa teachers shared their commitment to the ideal that no child will fail. By focusing on the success of each individual student and putting their heads together to come up with ideas to offer support to kids having difficulty, they created a culture of success at the school, White said.

Odessa principle Ken Shutz reported on the October 3 in-service day when Green worked directly with the Odessa staff. Board member Travis Wagner also attended on October 3. Shutz said Green suggested that the Odessa school make presentation about building a school culture, since Odessa had something unique going for it.

The staff had decided that the best way to demonstrate their approach was to make a video. Business teacher Terri King and science teacher Jeffery Wehr, working with high school students Braxton Estep and Nathyn Winslow, produced the video. Wehr and social studies teacher Larry Moffet wrote and sang the song that accompanies the video. Staff members ended the presentation by performing a dance routine in front of their peers at the inservice meeting. The video can be viewed at the district's website and on You Tube at http://www.you.com/watch?v=SV6-SjdbS0w.

College credit

Odessa school superintendent Suellen White told the board an academic acceleration policy was needed to allow the Odessa School District to apply for grant funds to help build dual-credit classes in which students could earn college and high- school credits simultaneously. White said one of her administration's main foals for the year is to develop dial-credit programs in which students can obtain credits for both high school and college. Advanced Placement (AP) English has been offered for the past two years, but White said she would like to expand similar opportunities for the high-school students.

To this end, White has recently attended a meeting of the "Rural Alliance for College and Career Success," a coalition of higher education staff and school districts in northeast Washington.

Dr. Terry Laes, president of the Big Bend community college, met with White this summer, and as a result of that meeting, Dean of Education and the vice president of Community Outreach from BBCC are scheduled as the first step toward developing a Running Start program in the high school.

Odessa High math teacher Travis Schuh attended a similar informational meeting in Ellensburg on Central Washington University's Cornerstone program.

Policies

Policies dealing with the new definitions of the highly-capable program were discussed in depth. Minor changes were discussed for: Policy 1400 (a;allowing board members to attend meetings by any communications platform available); Policy 2152 (listing marijuana as an illegal substance for interscholastic activity provisions); Policy 3210 ( listing Boy Scouts of America and other youth groups and adding another equal opportunity clause to the policy dealing with students).

The board also discussed new policies: Policy 3200 (rights and responsibilities regarding discipline); Policy 2414 (for community service as requiered by new legislation but following current district practice); and Policy 3226 (concerning interviews or interrogations of students at school by outside agencies).

Personnel

the board approved contracts for winter sports: Travis Schuh, head boys basketball coach; Larry Weber, assistant boys basketball coach; Kim Kruger, head girls basketball coach, Dusty Oestretch, head junior high boys basketball coach ,; Tyson Linstrum, assistant juionr high boys basketball coach; Denise Hoffman, head JH girls basketball coach; Rachel Roberts, assistant JH girls basketball coach; and Ryan Shafer, winter cheer coach.

Legislative dinner

White reported she ahs shceduled a legislative dinner for Monday, November 25, for 13th District Legislative Representatives Matt Manweller and Judy Warnick to meet with board members and superintendents from Lincoln County. The Odessa chapter of Future Business Leaders of AMerica will cater the dinner.

Grant award

White reported that Educational Services District (ESD) 101- working with Odessa, Davenport, and Reardan schools- has been awarded one of 14 national Carol White PEP grants for $869,000 for a wellness program that covers both nutrition and physical fitness. More details about the program award will be announced at a later date. White told the board the staff had recieved tyraining on Home-room. a digital dashboard added to the Skyward program showing all of the assesments of our students including state tests results and district mandated tests such as Aimsweb and Star enterprise testing. These results are availiable by class, by student, or school wide. There are many ways to sort and use information that is now quickly at hand due to the hard work of Bev Sherr this summer. She set the parameters for the program to use for tests the staff wanted to use.

Principle's report

Shutz described to the board the expansion of the PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Support) program into the community (as also reported in last week's The Record_. Teachers provided behavior tickets to businesses in the community, explaining to each the staff's desire to help students demonstrate positive behavior everywhere they go. People in the community are encouraged to use the tickets to recognize excellent behavior . Shutz said he tols of an Odessa student who offered to carry a woman's groceries out to the car for her. This is the type of behavior the school staff wants to know about and recognize.

Shutz reported on the Washington Educators conference he had just been to in Seattle, attending sessions on the Teacher/ Principle Evaluation Program, Common Core, and the use of social media to promote the school.

Facilities report

Head custodian Justin Parr gave a facilities report. Installation of a fire alarm system has been completed and was tested during the "Great American Shake-Out" earthquake drill held last week. He said the alarm is very loud and gets everyone out of the building in a hurry. New breakers for the football lights have been ordered. One has already been replaced, the next will be done before the next game and the others will be replaced as time allows.

Curriculum

Bev Sherr, the district's Assessment and Curriculum Director, presented the recommendation of the curriculum committee to purchase an online curriculum called "IXL" to help with math fluency and remediation in the early grades. The new licence purchase would be an addition to the 30 licenses purchased last summer for middle school math remediation. The board approved adoption of this new curriculum. Scherr also reported the need to look at the district's policy concerning curriculum adoption as it relates to technology and online programs.

Audit

White reported the district finally recieved the report from the Washington State Auditor for the audit of the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years. The audit report stated, "In most areas the District complied with state laws and regulations and its own policies and procedures." The report went on to say they had communicated certain matters to the district management and appreciated the commitment to resolving these matters. White reported the communication concerned how the district dealt with prevailing wage reporting on public works contracts. School business manager Julie Weishaar told the board that contractors must file an intent to pay prevailing wages and an affidavit reporting the wages paid to the Department of Labor and Industries. The district must withhold a retainage fee until these reports are cleared by L&I. the school district did require the contractors to pay prevailing wage, but did not verify it through L&I. This practice has been corrected beginning with the projects done over the summer.

White said that the onsite portion of the audit took place last March, with an exit conference held in June and the final report received on Monday. When given the opportunity to do a survey, White completed it online, outlining the positive and negitive parts of the audit expierience carefully. When she was done with the survey, however, the submit button would not function.

Other

Board members Marcus Horak said he will attend the Washington State School Directors Conference in November and also serve on the state nominating committee. White will also attend the conference.

Enrollment for October remained the same as for September. The ending cash balance for September was $511,000 which is a big decrease from the end of August due to the purchase of school supplies and other expenses incurred at the state of the school year.

The next board meeting will be a week early, on November 20, due to Thanksgiving.