The Cache County School Board met for a study session last night. The meeting was well attended by patrons and members of the school district. Each member of the school board was in attendance, as well as the business administrator and the superintendant.

Desire to be successful

The first item up for discussion was a report by the School Counselors in the 8/9 centers, North Cache and South Cache. Both schools are working on programs to address “the lack of desire to be successful” of some students—what one counselor from North Cache called their biggest concern. A counselor from South Cache listed student council groups as being one of the biggest helps to getting high-risk kids involved in a positive peer culture. Both schools have student council themes, “Nice Matters” in South Cache and “Make a Difference” at North Cache.

Other programs the counselors use include biannual classroom presentations on topics such as drug and alcohol prevention. They get the topics for these presentations from surveys to students and parents. The counselors also meet with 8th and 9th graders for Student Education Occupation Plan (SEOP) meetings.

Janine Justice from North Cache said about these meetings, “It’s a lot of fun. It’s a really positive interaction we have with the students,” noting that she enjoyed being able to meet with every single student. “Our main goal is to help students be successful.”

Classified employees

Following the counselors’ presentation, the board heard a report about the four Classified Administrative employees in the district. Since they are involved with negotiations for Classified employees in an administrative role, they have requested to be represented as Administrators instead of Classified employees to avoid further conflict of interest in upcoming negotiations. Some members of the board didn’t understand why they would have a conflict of interest, but it was explained that these four employees act as managers of the Classified employees, and therefore they may be better suited to fall under the guidelines of Administrators instead. This change would be basically nominal, since there would be no pecuniary difference with the employees if they fell under the Administrative guidelines. Superintendent Norton said he had no problems with allowing this change to take place.

Contracts

Next, the board addressed the fact that the compensation of the superintendent and the business administrator are not addressed with the other groups of district employees. The same 4.2% decrease has been applied to them that has been applied to other employees. The board also discussed the two types of annuities they offer: one is a monthly annuity that comes to the employee as salary and then is deducted monthly and added into the state 401k, and the other is an annual annuity that goes directly into the 401k.

Renewal committee

The board received a report on the high school renewal committee. This is a group of parents, teachers and administrators with the goal of assessing the curriculum and programs of the high school. They have been meeting every two weeks since September with two members of the board. They have been charged to make recommendations to the board regarding their examinations on Advanced Placement courses, concurrent enrollment and digital learning options, among other topics. The committee has a Covey Principals of Learning training coming up on November 17. The committee is at a point that they need a focus and they’ll look at these focal areas to narrow their scope.

Carry-over funds

The next item up for discussion was the “carry-over” funds that certain schools in the district appear to have unused. It was explained that there are certain areas of school funds that principals don’t have the discretion to use because they are allocated for specific reasons. This is the main cause of the appearance of “carry-over” funds in the district. For example, principals may retain the Lab Fee money for a couple of consecutive years in order to have enough funds to replace an entire computer lab. In the meantime, the funds would appear to be sitting dormant. Superintendent Steve Norton concluded this discussion by saying he will discuss these funds with the principals. He said that an appropriate amount of funds should be spent for the kids in the specific year the funds are given because “It’s implied that the fee you’re paying for your student will be used for your student.”

Before moving on, in response to some “patron questions” they have heard, the board wanted to point out that for the most part district money does not pay for athletics. Student fees, gate fees and fund raisers are the main points of funding for athletics, although the business administrator clarified that the coaches’ salaries do come as discretionary funds from the school budget.

Friday early release

The school board next talked about the policy of Friday early release, which every school in the district is participating in this year. The purpose of this schedule is to allow for Professional Learning Communities. A Professional Learning Committee is a group of teachers in a single department or subject with a set time to collaborate and help one another with common needs. The board is pleased with this schedule so far.

Next meeting

The next meeting will be held on November 19 at 5:30 p.m. in the Professional Development Center just south of the main school district building at 2063 North 1200 East in North Logan.