Students face busy times this spring

At the Odessa School Board meeting April 22, principal Jamie Nelson reported that state SBAC testing for all grades 3-8, 10 and 11 in English, Math and Science has begun. Scheduling is difficult due to the fact that testing is completed via computer.

Nelson complimented Bev Scherr on her hard work leading up to testing. By watching webinar after webinar to learn how to register students, train teachers, create testing windows for kids and select tests, she then had to watch updated webinars when the state testing system found an error in the previous instructions. The school district must ensure that its computer infrastructure is always up-to-date and will need to consider purchasing additional computers just to meet the testing requirements.

Nelson said student-led conferences will be held April 29, and there will be no school that day for the students. Parent participation response (confirming of conference times) has been excellent, she said.

April 30 is Grandparents/Special Friend Day at school, and May 18 will be a Mobius Science Night.

The Odessa FBLA chapter returned from state competition with five winning teams moving on to national competition in Chicago this summer.

Achieving first place were the Business Plan Team of Tyler Paris, Stacia Lesser and Katie DeWulf; the Community Service Team of Trevor King, Jenna Shafer, Carsen Weber, Dakota Largent and Colton Hunt; the Partnership with Business Team of Brad Johnston, Elizabeth Larsen, Chance Messer, Paige Alloway and Jayd Jennings and the Business Financial Plan Team of Molly Schafer, Alexis Burdick and Zoe Clark.

Second-place teams were the Local Chapter Annual Business Report team of Rebecca Fortner, Tyler Paris and Shelby Watkins and the Desktop Publishing Team of Stacia Lesser and Johnathon Brightwell.

Terri King, along with volunteer chaperones Kelly Weber, Jeanie Read and Jackie Johnston, all worked hard with the students on the final preparations while at the state competition.

On Monday night, King had the winning teams recreate their presentations for parents. It was amazing how much actual planning and work was required to create the 15-30-page reports.Team members then had only seven minutes to present the most important aspects of their final project.

Members of Odessa’s FFA Trap Shooting team competed April 17, and Caleb Singer placed third in the competition.

Three FFA members will show their animals at the Junior Livestock Show in Spokane the week of May 4-9. FFA members are also working toward their state competition to be held from May 14-17.

Junior-High class leaders will attend a Substance Abuse Day at Big Bend Community College on May 7, Nelson said, where there will be presentations by the Moses Lake Police Department K9 Unit, EMS Response Teams and a mock car crash, all demonstrating the dangers of substance abuse.

With Spring sporting events in full swing, scheduling them and other school activities is giving the school’s transportation department a run for its money.

Superintendent’s report

In Suellen White’s Superintendent’s report she told the board she was amazed at the success of the FBLA program. She recounted a conversation with a student from another school this fall. She had asked the student if she was coming to the “Lincoln County Career Fair” to be held in Odessa. The student looked at White and asked, “Is this an FBLA project?” When White said yes, the student said, “Darn, they will win again.”

White announced she will receive the ESD 101 Regional Washington Association of School Administrators Student Achievement Leadership Award.

White told the board that interviews for Special Education and Ag teachers will take place this week.

So far no interest has been shown in the summer school teacher position. The district is still looking for someone to fill this five-week position this summer. The bus driver position also remains unfilled. Substitutes are filling in for now, but providing transportation for extracurricular activities is a scramble each week.

White has asked the employee unions for dates to begin negotiations, so that they can come to an agreement before White’s contract ends. She also told the board that the new superintendent, Dan Read, is not available until July, so she will need extended contract days for the transition.

Facilities

Facilities director Justin Parr told the board he is spending a good deal of time dealing with landscaping and water issues at the athletic fields and around the school. Otherwise things are going well. He said he will be scheduling another facilities committee meeting soon to finalize the summer projects.

Legislature

White told the board that the regular session of the legislature ended with no agreement on a budget. Of all the bills presented dealing with education, only very few were passed. Many of those bills were minor but involved important corrections to previously passed legislation: New laws to limit the school’s ability to use restraint and isolation for out-of-control students, to require schools to file for special elections 60 days prior to the election rather than the current 45, for schools to teach about sudden cardiac arrest, to allow schools with fewer than five students to remain a school district if they have an average of more than five students over three years, provisions to assist military families with school issues, requiring certification for paraeduators, to change provisions for school library and media centers/programs to now be school library and technology centers/programs, provisions to increase student user privacy, provisions to require the teaching of tribal history, to increase compliance for special education transition services, to fix the third-grade reading notification so it coincides with when the results of the SBAC test are in and to allow the use of other benchmark testing as the means of determining if a student is in extreme need of special programs, and finally to support conflict-resolution programs in the school.

White’s financial report indicated the ending cash balance for March at $546,798. Enrollment remained the same at 213.5 full-time-equivalent students.

Parr presented a bid for the electronic reader board sign and an estimate for OTC to build and install the extended pole needed for it. The sign will cost approximately $19,000 plus tax and local installation that is expected to run about another $1,000. The company is a national company that has been in business for a long time. The board, after much discussion, voted to approve the purchase of the sign. It should be installed by August of this year.

The board approved contracts for teachers for next school year: Laura Caler, Craig Holman, Ellen Holman, Amy Hunt, Marianne Iksic, Kamrin Iverson, Terri King, Jill Larson, Timothy Larson, Larry Moffet, Jeffery Nelson, Maria Schuh, Travis Schuh, Bruce Todd, Kimberlee Todd, Lawrence Weber and Jeffery Wehr.

White told the board the classified employees do not have a contract. Next month she will present a list of classified employees who will be provided letters of assurance that they will have a job for the next school year.

The next board meeting will be May 27.