| Prairie
students do well on reading indicator
The scores from the Fall Idaho Reading Indicator (IRI) show Prairie students did very well this year as reported at the November school board meeting held Monday, Nov. 15. Out of 102 students tested in grades K-3 only one third grader scored a 1 (below grade level). 31 scored a 2 (near grade level) and 70 scored a 3 (at or above grade level). Prairie students scored better than state averages in both 2’s and 3’s and well below state averages for 1’s A couple of extra-curricular assignments were approved by the board. Mike VanderPas was approved as girls C basketball coach and Ryan Hasselstrom was approved as 7th grade boys basketball coach. Superintendent Stan Kress also read a letter from Hasselstrom who tendered his resignation as head football coach citing mostly personal reasons. John Nida volunteered to be the board representative on the Insurance Committee. Kress reported that the insurance fund is working out well enough that they may be able to reduce the premiums to the staff even if their cost goes up due to how well the fund has grown. The board decided to rotate their board meetings to the various school building starting with the January meeting. The January meeting was moved to Wednesday, Jan. 19 due to the Monday holiday, and will be at the High School. The February meeting was moved to Wednesday, Feb. 23, also due to a Monday holiday, and will be at the Middle School. The March meeting will be at the Elementary School. A new interscholastic activities policy was approved. It basically states that Prairie teams would play only accredited schools approved by the Idaho High School Activities Association. This is primarily due to insurance concerns as all approved schools pay dues to the IHSAA that goes towards paying for a catastrophic injury insurance policy that covers all members schools. Board members Della Gehring and Kellie Bruner reported on the sessions they attended at the Idaho School Board Association convention saying the sessions were very helpful and provided a lot of useful information. In administrative reports Rene’ Forsmann reported that they sent out the parent surveys that are required as part of the accreditation process by the state. They’ve received about 86 back for their 140 students. Parent-teacher conferences were very well attended with parents of 138 of the 140 students attending. Forsmann reported report cards went out with very few problems under the new system. She said other schools have reported having lots of problems with the new statewide system. A Veterans Day program was held and was very well attended. The Elementary winter concert is set for Tuesday, Dec. 21 at 1:30 p.m. Dave Snodgrass reported their surveys went out but haven’t got near as many back as the Elementary School. The Middle School winter concert has been set for Dec. 6 at 7:30 p.m. The Middle School also had a Veterans Day program and had Steve Wilson, an Air Force veteran, doing a presentation. Mike Bundy handed out a performance report to the board which provided a lot of information on how things went for the school over the past year.. He said the sophomores did very well on the Idaho Standards and Achievement Test (ISAT) with just one student having to retake part of the test. A new state requirement is that starting with this year’s sophomores class, they will need to achieve certain levels on the ISAT as a requirement for graduation. Bundy said a financial aid night was well attended. He said he also had a couple of people from the sheriff’s department do a presentation on recognizing and dealing with sexual harassment. Bundy said he hopes to get the surveys back by the end of the month and provide results back to the board by the January meeting. Pat Enneking asked about the surveys and wanted to know what the results were being used for. Bundy said they’re a new state accreditation requirement and results of the parent and community surveys will be used in formulating a school improvement plan. Enneking then suggested sending a couple of copies of the survey as he and his wife may not agree on certain items. Bundy said they have lots of extra surveys and anyone who wants an extra is welcome to ask for one. Kress reported that Idaho Supreme Court decided that House Bill 403 was unconstitutional. That’s the law used to sue the school district last summer. That law would have allowed a judge to levy the patrons of a school district enough money to fix safety issues without it having to be put to a vote. He said the next item in front of the Court is whether the state’s education financing is unconstitutional. That item probably won’t get before the court until January and may take awhile for a resolution. A bus stop request was made to the board with Kress and Snodgrass directed to look into it and work something out. The board adjourned to an executive session at 8:40 p.m. |
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