May 13, 2020 Board Meeting Minutes

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR WAYNE SCHOOL DISTRICT ON WEDNESDAY MAY 13th, 2020 AT 6:00 PM AT WAYNE HIGH SCHOOL

THOSE PRESENT:

ABSENT:

Jeff Chappell - Member

Conducting: Curtis Whipple

ADMINISTRATION

Curtis Whipple called the meeting to order. 

Superintendent Fahey offers the reverence.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES: 

Cory motions to approve the minutes pending one possible change of hours available for the elementary school. April seconds the motion. All in favor.

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Tyler speaks about the health pool changes. There will be a decrease of 3%. We will also be joining a pharmacy collective with Mercer. This should allow lower rates on pharmaceuticals. The majority of drugs will be the same price or cheaper due to this. 

Our district will receive about 109,000 (revised to 88,000) as part of the CARES act and will submit reimbursement for our expenses. This is allocated to our district based on the Title 1 formulas. The state also has some money they can choose to send out where there are needs.

Federal programs also have been given a deadline extension for a year. We will have through September 30, 2021 to spend most of this money. Trust Lands will also have an extension to spend funds.

The Joint Resolution 301 encourages government entities to refrain from spending on anything non-essential and begin planning for a budget that will be equal to or less than last year. 

The analysts are looking at a 2%, 5%, or 10% cut in the base budget for FY21. A 10% cut would equate to about $500,000 for our district. 

Tyler reviews the preliminary budget briefly, but states that the numbers will change as information comes to us. Curtis asks about the Capital Fund expenditures for FY20. These numbers are the final budget, not the final expenditures. $140,000 has been spent so far out of our capital fund this year. The FY21 budget includes amounts to cover potential locker-room remodels and other small projects for next year.  Curtis also asks about property tax. The $1,625,000 amount is the estimate from the state based on the taxable values and current rates. There is some doubt as to whether collections will come in significantly lower due to the economic situation.

Cory makes a motion to pay A/P expenditures. Shawn makes a second. All in favor.

CITIZEN COMMENTS

Mary Bray provides details about the parade for graduation. 

Bekkah Petree comments that she has enjoyed this format of allowing people to participate electronically and hopes it will continue. She asks if there are any plans for the future. Curtis responds there are not any current plans and says the board will consider it.

INFORMATION ITEMS

The Superintendent reviews the next board meeting. It will be held on June 10^th at 6 pm.

He then covers the SPED report. For the most part, we received very good grades with a few areas that could be improved.

Some areas of the state are trying to push for a yellow COVID warning. Currently we are in orange. This is determined by the local health agency. This has a large effect on how we consider doing summer school or even the next school year. We may have a number of restrictions that will still be in place.

As far as summer school, we can have some people come in to the school for tutoring, but not the robust program that we originally hoped for. 

Curtis asks about the numbers for summer school. Mary says that there are currently about 10 students who might need summer school. Cherie Blackburn states that their goal at the elementary school is to catch up kids on things they have missed. Lance Peterson says they have been tracking students and they have about 20-30% of the students who still need work. By the time they are done, there will be somewhere in the range of high-teens that will be involved in summer school. 

April asks if they are doing core classes or electives for summer school.  Mary responds that they are doing all the courses. Lance says they will provide help for all the classes they need to make up. Normal summer school is just for the core classes. 

Superintendent Fahey speaks about the District Improvement Committee and some of the goals that have been discussed there. One of the suggestions was to have team building activities as part of the professional development. Curtis says that he was part of the meeting and says that one of the feelings expressed there was that they should not require anything above and beyond their normal duties. He supported the idea that this should be part of their normal schedule. 

The board wants to wait to finalize the Roles & Responsibilities document because they want involvement from the new superintendent.

Cory provides a UHSAA report. They met on May 5^th to address a petition circulating by students to allow them to play sports. The board agreed that they will stay with the prior decision to cancel all spring sports. Tryouts have been occurring for students for fall sports one student at a time. 

Mary says that we have major and minor sports and the only minor sport is cross-country. She would like the cross-country program to be a major sport for stipend reasons. Curtis asks about this classification. The Superintendent says that major sports have more risk involved. Mary says that the coach spends a lot of time and money traveling up here. Superintendent Fahey says that we should pay based on classification and not set a precedence of paying based on how far someone is traveling. April says that the categories of major and minor may have something to do with participation levels. There is some discussion as to why the categories exist and what classifies each sport. Cory suggests that if we make a change in the amount of stipend, they may want to consider it being retroactive. 

Curtis asks if this is in policy. Superintendent Fahey responds that it is not.

Cory asks if there are major/minor activities not sport-related. Mary responds that choir and band are paid $50 for each performance up to $2,000. The clubs are paid from CTE funds based on number of students involved and activities they go to. 

Curtis requests that we get information on the programs and asks Mary to provide that at a future meeting. Shawn suggests we look at cross-country as being two teams. There is a clause that says that the number of assistant coaches increases with the number of kids participating. Cory believes there is a distinction on how long the sport lasts. Some seasons are longer. The Superintendent and Mary will do some research and present at a later time.

Tyler reviews major projects for the summer. Based on recommendations from Shane, we are looking to replace the roof on the Loa Elementary gym, which will be approximately $20,000. The windows on the east side of Loa also need to be replaced, which is estimated at $37,000. There are also some windows at the middle school that will be included in a bid. Some of the roof-top units at the high school also need to be replaced. 

Mary mentions that Heidi asked about the Driver’s Ed car cover. Superintendent Fahey said we applied for a grant for about $16,000 for the shed/cover and it was approved. 

Shawn asks about the chairs at the high school and suggests we get them this year. Superintendent says he hesitates to commit any additional funds due to the current situation. 

BUSINESS ITEMS

Curtis introduces Randy Shelley as the new superintendent and his wife Chalyece. He started his teaching career in Wayne County in 1993-95.  Randy then went to North Sanpete where he taught some math, band, and computer science. He worked as a middle school principal, moved into district administration in 2010 as assistant superintendent and has been there until now. He will start at the end of June. 

April makes a motion to approve Randy Shelley as superintendent. Cory seconds. All in favor.

Superintendent Fahey presents the Trust Lands plans for 20-21. April asks if they are hiring a teacher with the money. Cherie states that they are not planning on hiring an additional teacher with the funds. 

April asks about the ACT retaking process – they will allow them to retake a specific subject. Curtis asks if there is an opportunity to retake. Mary says the school pays for the second opportunity. The seniors could choose this fall to take the portion of the ACT where they want to improve. The money will carry-over to allow this.

Cory makes a motion to approve FY21 Trust Lands Plans. April seconds. All in favor.

Tyler presents the invoices from McKinstry on the energy audit. He says he was asked to go to McKinstry to find out how much it costs to evaluate the ground source heat pump. Contractually, we owe just over $11,000 for the energy audit. The ground source heat pump was extra work requested by the school board. April says that the board was very clear that they didn’t want to do the heat pump but just wanted an estimate. She says that this was outside of the scope of the project and didn’t think they should have put in that much time for the project. Curtis says that the problem was that they asked for information and could have slowed the process but didn’t receive the information asked for. Shawn agrees and says that they had a hard time communicating that the district only wanted what was needed on the roof-top units. He feels that they didn’t listen to what the board wanted. April says she wants to pay the $11,000 on the contract. Shawn asks what we received from them. Tyler says we have the energy audit itself. Shawn says he wants to show good faith, but not for this price. Cory says that he doesn’t want to pay more. The board decides not to pay any additional amount.

Cory makes a motion to approve fall sports schedules. April seconds.  All in favor. There is still some uncertainty surrounding what will actually happen due to COVID restrictions.

Superintendent brings up policies BBG: Board Members: Compensation & Expenses and CKB: Travel & Expense Reimbursement. Cory says it is different than what he saw earlier. Curtis says that last month they agreed to go back to the receipt method of travel reimbursement. Cory and April agree to get together to work on these.

April makes a motion to table policies BBG and CKB. Shawn seconds. All in favor. 

April makes a motion to approve the following new hires:

Shawn seconds. All in favor.

Cory makes a motion to approve the following employee separations:

April seconds. All in favor.

Cory asks if SITLA land was sold to Best Friends. Curtis says that it is possible. The land has to be sold in an open auction. Someone can request to purchase but it always goes to auction.

Cory has a question for the administrators. He asks if anything has been done for those who may be interested in homeschooling next year. Mary says she hasn’t heard of anyone doing that but rather more from those who don’t want to do homeschool. Curtis says there is a push from USBA to highlight public schools. 

April states we should have a debriefing regarding the school dismissal situation with administrators, parents, and teachers to determine what worked and what needs to be improved upon. Cory says there are issues with the grading system and suggests maybe we should have done them differently. He would like to hear all the different points of view. April suggests that there needs to be a way for the whole district to get together. Curtis says it should start in community council. Mary says it will start in administrators meeting.

April says that changes in board meeting location and time need to go out as a board decision. Tyler asks if this is a board decision or needs to be with the board president, which is how it was done. Cory says if we are going to make a change, it needs to be done in board meeting. April says that any change needs to be in a board meeting. Curtis says that their needs to be some flexibility during these times but interaction in person is much better. It is tough for those who are listening remotely. The interaction is harder with that format. He states that having this broadcast has advantages but makes it more complicated. Andrea says that this provides a great benefit to those listening. April suggests they can listen after the board meeting. Curtis says that this location is much better than the previous experience at the middle school. We need to be sensitive and respectful of what is happening in the environment. Tyler asks for guidance from the board on how they would like him to handle changes in venue. April says all questions should go to every board member. Cory thanks Andrea for her help and says he would prefer to have some people here. The school board decides to have the next month’s meeting June 10th at the high school in the Ed Net room.

Cory asks about summer school. The Superintendent says that they are still considering what can happen and will use federal funds for that. Restrictions and guidance continue to change frequently. Cory wonders if there are teachers who don’t want to do it. The Superintendent says that there are other people in the community who may be available to help tutor. Lance states that summer school won’t be required at this point.  

Cory Anderson makes a motion to go into closed session per Utah Code Annotated Section 52-4-205(1)(a) at 7:45 pm. Shawn seconds.

Open meeting resumes at 8:49 pm.

Curtis adjourns the meeting at 8:49 pm.