HUMBOLDT — The quality of a child’s “education shouldn’t depend on his zip code,” USD 258 Superintendent K.B. Criss told board members Monday night.
Legislation backed by gubernatorial hopeful Sen. Sam Brownback would change the current funding formula for all schools throughout the state, Criss said, from one based on per-pupil counts and percentage of children receiving free and reduced-price lunches, to a flat rate for all districts that would require additional capital be raised through Local Option Budgets by raising mil levies.
That approach would be fundamentally unfair to poorer, rural districts, Criss noted.
“One mil in Shawnee County raises enough money to pay for 43.6 teachers,” Criss told the board. “One mil in Western Kansas pays for .16 teachers.”
On a local level, he noted that one mil in Burlington, bumped by the presence of Wolf Creek Nuclear Plant, raises $300,000, while a single mil in Humboldt raises only $25,000.
Humboldt schools saw an increase in the number of pupils this year, Criss announced. A head count of 576 students is significantly higher than five years ago, when 489 students were enrolled, Criss said. “We’re up 50 to 60 kids, which is really good,” he said.
The full time equivalent stands at 541.5, he said.
Of the total number of students, 53 percent qualify for free and reduced-price lunches this year, Criss told the board, 2 percent more than last school year.
IN A SCHOOLWIDE effort to improve technology delivery to students, high school publications instructor Kim Isbell and fourth grade teacher Haley Ellison will attend the Technology Plus Learning conference in Phoenix, Ariz., Oct. 19-21.
“One of our goals was to increase professional development for our classrooms with technology,” Criss said.
A Carl Perkins grant, plus charter school funds, will be used to send the teachers to the emerging technology conference. The two will then share what they have learned with instructors districtwide.
In an effort to boost efficiency, district e-mail will be transferred to a Google-supported educational mail system, said Humboldt High School Principal Craig Smith.
The transfer will eliminate a spam problem that has gotten out of hand on the district server, Smith said.
“Some teachers are receiving 150 spam e-mails per account,” he noted, taking considerable time to sort through to find legitimate correspondence and occasionally crashing the school’s server.
The new system will be monitored by Google, is provided at no cost to the district, and will not only limit spam but filter inappropriate e-mails such as offers for Viagra or pornography, Smith said. In addition, the educational mail protocol allows for linking maps, calendars and other necessary data sources between mail addresses to make finding such information easier for parents, he said.
“We’re trying to find a way to be more progressive in our communication with parents,” Smith noted.
The new mail addresses will still have a USD.258 extension, he noted.
Four teachers each received $850 in vocational equipment funds for their programs, Smith said. Nathan Ellison, building trades; Dorothy Neeley, Family and Consumer Science; Matt Kerr, vocational agriculture and Kim Isbell, publications, will all receive funds.
After attending an ACT curriculum conference recently, Smith said he is looking into aligning the high school curriculum with that needed for success on the test.
“It’s probably the only test our kids take that they never study for,” he said.
He noted that with state assessment scores uniformly high, aligning curricula with the ACT will better prepare students for college and work beyond high school.
“The goal is to set alignment for your school and also for each individual kid,” Smith said. “I’m encouraged; I know our staff wants to do it.”
Monarch Cement will donate materials and the school will provide labor to make improvements to the high school track program, Smith said, including bringing jump, shot put and discus forums to standard levels.
ELEMENTARY students are deep into tech rich learning, Principal Kay Bolt said.
“They are using YouTube for videos that relate to books we’re reading in class,” she said. Students are also “learning to create PowerPoint presentations and create Word documents and Excel spreadsheets,” she said. Students are also videoing their progress “to self-evaluate what they’re learning in class,” she said.
Next, Bolt said, “we’re wanting to learn how to pod cast and put that on our website.” She is also looking into e-pals and will investigate how other schools set up such correspondence to ensure safety of the students, she said.
At the middle school level, a Principal Payday plan similar to that used at Iola Middle School will be implemented.
Students will be given 16 “Cub Bucks “ at the start of the fall semester and 20 at the beginning of spring semester to which they will have to add additional bucks earned through merit achievement, such as making the honor roll, in order to attend a special end-of-semester outing, location determined by grade level.
“It’s not something that’s just given to them; they have to work for it,” Bolt said.
Bucks will be lost for missing assignments, class tardiness or disciplinary problems, she said.
K-12 Band Director Terry Meadows noted that the combined middle school/high school band has 39 members, 8 from high school and 31 in middle school.
The band has raised $4,612 towards the $8,500 needed to travel to Branson, Mo., Apr. 29-May 1 to attend a judged music festival at the College of the Ozarks. Students will also receive clinics from the judges at the festival. The group is chartering a bus to travel to the event. Ten chaperones will join them. The board approved the trip, 6-1, Don Hauser opposed.
Bids accepted for work on the building trades home were from Dale’s Sheet Metal, Iola, $7,419.20 for heating and air; KK Electric of Chanute, $1,750; and Northside Plumbing, LaHarpe, $1,500.
10/15/10
By ANNE KAZMIERCZAK
Register Reporter
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