| School
Calendar for 2011-12 approved
The school calendar was approved for the 2011-12 school year at the school board meeting Tuesday, Feb. 22. The meeting was moved to Tuesday due to the boys district tournament game Monday. The calendar option that was approved was the one that was most similar to the current year. School will start Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2011 and end on Friday, June 1, 2012. The calendar is summarized below. Safety busing was formally approved. A total of 70 children are involved. This includes picking up some of the in-town children as well as busing between schools for example Middle School students catching a bus at the Elementary. An early out was approved for the last day of school. Class will let out at 1 p.m. on that date. A proposal for senior project policy was presented for review. One of the new education requirements proposed by the state is for graduating seniors to take part in and present a senior project. This is to start with the class of 2013 (this year’s sophomores). Some districts have been doing this for years and Patty Hinkelman put something together from what they do. Hinkelman also put forth a suggestion to make economics required for a full year instead of just a semester. This is due to feedback from students as much as the fact that you can’t really go into much depth in what students need to know in these tough economic times in just a semester of classwork. The board will think about this and make a decision next month. A resignation was accepted from Joe Biltz as a Special Ed aide. Superintendent Rene’ Forsmann said she is looking at working with Opportunities Unlimited which is billed through Medicaid at no cost to the district. Lynn Guyer asked what happens when the legislature cuts Medicaid. Forsmann said we’ll have to deal with that when it happens. In facilities updates Forsmann said she feels it would be a good idea to insulate the ceiling in the lower level due to noise coming through during band class. Work is supposed to be completed by April 29. Adding the ceiling insulation will add 3 days to that. On the switchover from coal to pellets-will have to study for cost savings but positives so far are that pellets are delivered from Grangeville, cleanup is a lot better and they’re a lot less time intensive. At this point Jake Forsmann likes pellets a whole lot better. On appraising the Elementary buildings-the appraiser feels school buildings are hard to do as there’s not much to compare them to. The appraisal needs to be less than a year old for sale to be approved. Forsmann said they would wait to do any appraisal until there is some firm interest. In administrative reports Greg Deiss said the steelhead project is back on the calendar with financial support from parents and students. Jesse Cronan was the attendance prize winner for January. A total of 84 students had perfect attendance for December. Kendra Duclos and Calli Perrin were the top two spellers at the Elementary School spelling bee and represented the school well at the District bee. Just over 96% of students reached Accelerated Reading goals and had a movie party on Jan. 28 as a reward. Darbie Duclos and some high school students put on a great science show Feb. 17. It was very well received by the students. Randy Brown reported all students who went over their nine absentee days for the first semester have made it up in Saturday school. They had a couple of seniors drop out of school before the semester finished but on the bright side, one student who didn’t graduate last Spring came back to make up classes and plans on walking at graduation this spring. Lots of state tournament activity for winter sports athletes. He reported the construction seems to be going well and after the first week when walls were being knocked down there has been very little disruption to classes. Forsmann reported that the 6th graders participated in hunter safety Jan. 24-28. On Feb. 1 the 8th grade students participated in National Assessment of Educational Progress. This is given to selected schools and grade levels throughout the state and is used to measure how Idaho stacks up against other states. Junior High volleyball started Feb. 3. Darbie Duclos also presented her science show at the Middle School with lots of oohs and aahs from the students. Progress reports go out Feb. 23. As superintendent she reported that Sheri Daly has 22 schools participating through the Region II Professional Technical Academy in a variety of medical type classes. She has closed registration at 205 students. The Office of Energy Resources completed HVAC tune-ups on 894 school buildings across Idaho and are now gearing up on energy retrofits. The shop building is due to get new lighting this summer (move from T-12 to T-8 lights). If funds are available after the first round they will go after gym lighting. On the budget, it appears we will be down about 2.8 units for the upcoming school year. There are no real numbers yet coming from the state. We are looking at 397 students for next year with a projected 20 Kindergarten students versus 39 graduating seniors. The board adjourned to an executive session for evaluations at 8:15 p.m. The next regular meeting will be Monday, March 21 at 7 p.m. at the Middle School library. 2011-12 Prairie School calendar The School Calendar was approved for the 2011-2012 school year at the school board meeting last Tuesday, Feb. 22. School will start for students on Wednesday, August 24. There will be inservice days with no school for students on Oct. 6-7 & 28; Jan. 13 and March 23. Other days off from school are Sept. 5 for Labor Day, November 4 (end of quarter); Nov. 23-25 for Thanksgiving; Dec. 19-30 for Christmas Break with students returning to class on Monday, Jan. 2; Jan. 16 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; Feb. 17 and 20 for President’s Day weekend, March 30 (Good Friday) through April 6 for Spring Break and May 28 for Memorial Day. The last day of school will be June 1 with an early out at 1 p.m. that day. Parent-teacher conference days will be Nov. 2-3 and March 28-29. |
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