At the end of last school year, the ISD 166 school board voted to reduce the district’s paraprofessional staff in light of budget challenges and declining enrollment. Several paraprofessionals who worked for the district last year were not rehired this fall, but on January 19, at its first meeting of 2011, the board plans to discuss the possibility of adding another paraprofessional to the staff.
On May 19, the board approved a reduction of paraprofessional staff for the 2010-11 school year from 21 people working a total of 140.25 hours a day, an average of 6.7 hours per person, to 19 people working a total of 108.8 hours a day, an average of 5.7 hours a day.
This fall, the district advertised for paraprofessional staff after making staff cuts. Superintendent Beth Schwarz explained in a district newsletter that one of the positions was for a paraprofessional to be with students receiving speech therapy through video conferencing after a replacement could not be found for retired speech therapist Barb Coe. With several paraprofessionals not getting rehired in the fall, hiring the speech para brought the district’s hours up to 102 hours a day.
At its regular meeting on December 15, Principal Gwen Carman said, “We really would like one additional paraprofessional position in the elementary school.” She said the elementary school ended up with more kids with special needs than they previously thought they would have.
The superintendent said that special education funds and Jobs Bill money could pay for the new position, which would cost about $10,000 for the second half of the school year. President Obama signed the Jobs Bill into law in August, providing dollars for teacher salaries and other government jobs.
If this new position is approved by the school board, the district’s paraprofessional hours will be at 109 per day.
The board regretfully approved the resignation of paraprofessional Linda Bauer with a vote of four ayes and one nay from Leonard Sobanja. Superintendent Schwarz said Bauer has “expressed concerns,” which she invited Bauer to share at the board meeting. Bauer did not attend the meeting and Schwarz did not delineate the concerns, but she said, “She looks forward to volunteering for this district at a later date.”
Shorter lunch periods
Both Gwen Carman and Beth Schwarz are advocating to reduce the middle and high school lunch periods from 50 minutes to 30 minutes. “It’s a very challenging time for us in terms of management and supervision of students,” Carman told the board.
The reduced lunchtime would add two minutes of class time to each of the seven class periods. Schwarz said this would be the equivalent of adding a week of instructional time to each class over the course of a school year.
With this new schedule, teachers would teach five class periods per day and have one prep period, one duty period, and one lunch break.
Data-driven instruction
Superintendent Schwarz expressed concern over what she fears is a misconception among the public that the $155,000 the board approved for datadriven instruction is simply money to test students. She hoped people would realize that a small percentage of the money will pay for the assessments themselves and for training teachers how to conduct them, whereas a lot of the money will pay for applying the information learned from the testing by tailoring instruction to each student’s particular needs.
A summer school program is part of this plan as well, and Schwarz said the Jobs Bill will pay a portion of the cost.
The board approved hiring fourthand fifth-grade teacher Jana Larson and human resource administrator Lori Backlund to coordinate the data-driven instruction program. They will each be paid $2,000 over the second half of this school year.
Parking lot sander
Maintenance director Mike Groth requested authorization to purchase a sander that could be attached to the back of the district’s plow pickup.
Last year, Groth told the board, a couple of ice storms left the parking lot icy. The city and the county sanded the parking lot but didn’t get there until after cars had arrived. Because people tend to fall right outside their cars, he said, the lot needs to be sanded right after it is plowed and before cars arrive.
Two falls in the parking lot have already been documented this year, Groth said. While custodians have had to deal with sand on school floors, Superintendent Schwarz said community members have spoken to her about the need to keep the lots free of ice.
If a storm hits at night, Groth said, his crew starts clearing the lot at about 3:00 a.m., a job that takes 3½ hours. This is cheaper than hiring out and results in the lots being clear when people arrive in the morning. The board approved the purchase.
Multi-functional copier/printers
Despite a presentation on the merits of their equipment and service, Tri-State Business Systems of Superior lost out on a bid to continue providing the school with copier/printers and service agreements.
Tri-State Account Manager Kim Culp told the board that the new generation of copy machines is “light years” ahead of the old, able to interface with multiple computers and provide safeguards for confidential data. He and Service Manager Greg Pahos outlined the merits of their equipment, but Culp said, “Service is the most important thing that we at Tri-State have to offer.”
Superintendent Schwarz said she gathered data on three different companies and recommended that they go exclusively with the other company that has been servicing the district: IKON Business Services with a branch office in Duluth. Two IKON representatives gave their pitch to the school board at a previous meeting. IKON offered a package that would bring the district a savings of $782 a month, she said, whereas Tri-State offered a savings of just under $420 a month.
The board approved the switch to IKON’s services exclusively. As old copiers are replaced, the information on their hard drives will be erased to protect student and personnel confidentiality rights.
New school board members
Jeanne Anderson and Debra White were sworn in as school board members, which will bring the board to seven members until after the January meeting at which Bill Huggins and Eric Kemp will fulfill their terms.
“I’d like to thank both Bill and Eric for serving on the board,” Leonard Sobanja said. “Theyhave worked hard – and they agree with me!”
Rod Wannebo will be retiring from the board at the end of February, so a replacement will be needed for him as well.
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