December 14th, 2015 School Board Meeting Minutes

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR WAYNE SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD AT THE DISTRICT OFFICE ON MONDAY DECEMBER 14, 2015 AT 6:00 PM.

Those Present:

Joni Taylor – President
April Torgerson – Vice President
Cory Anderson – Member
Curtis Whipple – Member
Jeffery Chappell – Member
Burke Torgerson – Superintendent
Heather Okerlund – Business Administrator
Conducting:  Joni Taylor

ADMINISTRATION

Joni Taylor called the meeting to order.  She announced we would begin with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a reverence from Cory Anderson.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES:

Jeffery Chappell moved to accept the minutes.  Curtis Whipple seconded.  All in favor. 

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Heather Okerlund answered questions about accounts payable.

Cory Anderson motioned to approve the accounts payable.  April Torgerson seconded.  All in favor.

Heather Okerlund answered questions about the financial reports.

CITIZEN COMMENTS 

No citizen’s comments. 

INFORMATION ITEMS

Track facilities update.  Heidi said that two people showed up for the meeting, both were from out of the area and she couldn’t recall the company names.  Both walked around and looked at the project but they didn’t seem very interested, one didn’t even take notes and both said they would get back to Mary but never have.  We discussed what our priorities are with the project.  Drainage and grading are probably phase 1 because of the water issues.  Heidi mentioned that the track was having some problems and was coming up on the north side, Superintendent Torgerson will get with Jordan since he was involved in the process and see if there is any warranty on the track. Discussed what our next step is and that since we really only had one response to the RFI we would invite that engineer to come to our next board meeting and discuss options with him so we can decide how to proceed.

Recognize Coach Ellett and the Wayne High School State Baseball Champions:  Joni Taylor read a letter from the Utah High School Activities Association congratulating the coach and team for their 1A championship. 

Health & Human Sexuality curriculum review.  Superintendent Torgerson described our current policy and we briefly reviewed the curriculum.  Our policy is that we are supposed to develop a committee to review the curriculum.  The committee would basically be reviewing what the state has approved and make sure our curriculum follows that. Superintendent Torgerson will work on putting a committee together, and we will make this a business item for next month. 

Superintendents report.  Discussed our forward planning next steps, we have a meeting on Thursday with the administrators and some of the teachers to start planning also.  Superintendent Torgerson referenced the school reports that were provided.  We discussed the USBA convention next month and what reservations still need to be made.  Discussed the various legislative priorities, fully fund growth, 2% on the WPU (the governor is proposing 4.5%).  They also have a technology proposal $50M one time and $50M ongoing.  USBA is increasing their dues to a $3,000 base instead of $1,000, they are going to get a public relations person with the additional funds, which should really benefit the smaller districts.  Superintendent Torgerson asked about how the Board felt about doing Christmas Cards to send out to other districts.  Joni Taylor and Cory Anderson both liked the idea so it’s something we’ll look into for next year.  Superintendent Torgerson said that the high school and middle school have changed their schedule to holding all classes on Friday instead of only five classes to try and help out kids who frequently miss classes for sports.  A federal law, ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) just passed to replace NCLB that supposedly gives more control of how to spend funds to states and local districts.  Superintendent Torgerson handed out a report we got from the Utah System of Higher Education regarding our graduates from 2014 and how they are performing in college.  Superintendent Torgerson also handed out a list that he and Shane went over regarding critical maintenance items for this year. 

BUSINESS ITEMS

Review and accept audit report.  James Gilbert from Gilbert and Stewart presented the audit report to the audit committee last month.  Joni Taylor said she thought the audit committee meeting went really well.  Heather Okerlund went through the audit report briefly with the entire board and we discussed some of the changes that were made this year due to new accounting standards.  All of the audit opinions/reports we received were unmodified and we had no findings.  April Torgerson made a motion to accept the audit report.  Jeffery Chappell seconded.  All in favor.

Approve school breakfast at Wayne High School.  Heather Okerlund presented what Coral had worked up regarding school breakfast at Wayne High School.  The high school wants to try it and we think it is feasible without adding extra staff, which would add too much cost.  The initial cost will be $1.60 per breakfast and we’ll try it for the last half of the year starting in January.  Curtis Whipple motioned to approve breakfast at Wayne High School.  Cory Anderson seconded.  All in favor.

Adopt a board meeting schedule for 2016.  Discussed the option of moving the meetings up in the day and decided to try having board meetings starting at 4:00 pm on Wednesday’s.  April Torgerson made a motion to approve board meetings on most 2^nd Wednesdays at 4:00 pm.  Jeffery Chappell seconded.   All in favor.

Third and final reading Leave and Pay Policy.  Curtis Whipple made a motion to approve policy DHE, Leave and Pay Policy.  April Torgerson seconded.  All in favor.

Decide if we want to give non-licensed employees an opportunity to sign up for a retirement option at 20 years instead of 25 years.  Superintendent Torgerson said we are recommending staying at the 25 years to be consistent with other employees in the district.  Curtis Whipple made a motion to leave the policy as is.  Cory Anderson seconded.  All in favor.

Third reading and approve policies DAA – Nondiscrimination, DAC – Background Checks, DACA – Personal Reporting of Arrests and Convictions, DDA – Reporting of Child Abuse.  Curtis Whipple made a motion to approve the third reading and approve DAA, DAC, DACA, and DDA.  April Torgerson seconded.  All in favor.

First reading policies DHC – Redress of grievances, DJ – Employee references and letters of recommendation, DKAC – Nepotism, DKB – Sexual Harassment.  Cory Anderson made a motion to approve the first readings of DHC, DJ, DKAC, and DKB, clarifying that one reference to policy DHC on the agenda was incorrectly made as DHA, the motion is regarding policy DHC.  Curtis Whipple seconded.  All in favor.

Cory Anderson made a motion that we do not renew our contract with Lear and Lear.  Curtis Whipple seconded.  All in favor.  Superintendent Torgerson said he had recently used Burbidge and White to assist with some district business.  Curtis Whipple asked if we could get a retainer with Burbidge and White instead since that is how we got a lower rate per hour with Lear and Lear.   Superintendent Torgerson said he would look into it.

BOARD ITEMS

April Torgerson asked what is going on with the preschool because she’s had a lot of questions about it.  Apparently a person in the community that was doing preschool stopped because she got a job teaching online.  Discussed what our current practices and policies are and our options regarding preschool if we wanted to make any changes.

Joni Taylor shared a letter from LeVoy Tolbert regarding the tax increase.  She also read a letter from the Superintendent from the Tintic School District thanking Superintendent Torgerson for help with policies and advice for running a small school district.  Joni Taylor asked Superintendent Torgerson to please put the letter in his file, it was very complementary to Superintendent Torgerson.

Cory Anderson brought up the possible changes to the board meeting room, but decided based on recent discussions that we should probably hold off for a while until after we make some other decisions regarding facilities.  Cory Anderson asked what our policies were regarding the safety in the schools, especially regarding the recent events across the state.  Superintendent Torgerson said it’s something we have procedures for but that we probably need to revisit with the schools. Superintendent Torgerson said he’d start with the administrators and determine what we need to do.  Cory Anderson said he was concerned about the Voted Local Levy tax proposal and the effort we put into advertising it.  April Torgerson brought up that we also have parent e-mails that the secretaries at the schools have for communication purposes.  April Torgerson said that she also felt that door-to-door probably needs to happen too.

Curtis Whipple and Jeffery Chappell didn’t have anything.

Curtis Whipple made a motion to go into closed meeting at 9:05 to discuss the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual.  Cory Anderson seconded.  All in favor.

April Torgerson – Aye
Cory Anderson – Aye
Joni Taylor – Aye
Jeffery Chappell – Aye
Curtis Whipple – Aye

Joni Taylor declared us back into open meeting at 10:00 pm.

Approve new employees.  April Torgerson made a motion to approve Ray Pini, Myca Flannagan, Sylvia Jackson, Michelle Coleman, Dwight Ellett and Jamie Leavitt.  Jeffery Chappell seconded.  All in favor.

April Torgerson made a motion to adjourn.  Curtis Whipple seconded. 

Meeting adjourned at 10:05 pm.