School hires ag teacher

At its regular monthly meeting on August 27, 2014, the Odessa School Board accepted the resignation of Erica Whitmore as Ag Education Teacher. It also approved contracts with Merleen Smith for summer Chef Camp and with Ben Burbank as the new Ag Education Teacher. Extra-curricular contracts were also approved for Amy Hunt as Pep Club Advisor, Justin Parr as Concessions Director and Julie Wehr as Camp Wooten Advisor. Co-curricular contracts were approved for Craig Holman, Music; Jeanie Read, National Honor Society; Terri King, FBLA; Ellen Holman, Knowledge Bowl; Larry Moffet, Junior Class advisor; Larry Weber, Junior High advisor and Terri King, Annual advisor.

Overnight travel for the sixth-graders to stay at the Camp Wooten Environmental Learning Center was approved for September.

Superintendent’s report

Superintendent Suellen White reported that the first day of school went well. “We have been working all summer to make things ready for today, and it came and went well!” There were approximately 200 full-time equivalent students, with an actual head count of 209. The actual first enrollment date for official records will be Friday.

The Fourth Avenue road construction project has made transportation and parking around the school difficult. “We have done what we can to make it safe and continue to look at the evolving situation each day and will make needed adjustments,” White said.

New principal Jamie Nelson and the student-body officers prepared a rousing opening assembly for all students and staff. The officers prepared skits illustrating the “STARS” (Safety, Trustworthy, Active Learning, Respect, Strive for Success) behavior expectations as part of the assembly.

White said a new iPad lab has been set up for the elementary students, and soon there will be a new Chromebook lab for the high school.

A very successful Summer Chef Camp was held the first two weeks in August, mostly due to the efforts of Merleen Smith and Bev Scherr. The enrollment cap for the camp had been set at 30 but ended up with 40 students participating. White said it was a very positive experience for the students and that plans were being made to expand and make the camp better by having enough staff to deal with the number of students wanting to be involved.

The Empire Health Foundation sponsored school cooks Becky Kolterman and Mikey Galloway at a culinary boot camp for a week over the summer. Kolterman used the knowledge gained to make some immediate changes in the school’s food program and plans on making more as the year progresses. The chef who put on the camp, L.J. Clenk, visited our school kitchen this week to give ideas for implementing more changes. Kolterman has ordered new equipment and has also taken over the ordering and preparing of morning snacks for the elementary school. The focus will be fruits and vegetables

White said that the Senior Seminar, a required class to help students prepare for their senior projects, had been dropped this year due to scheduling difficulties. But since the senior project has now been dropped as a graduation requirement by state education officials, White will bring a proposal to the board next month to drop the senior project from Odessa’s graduation requirements.

In the past, two paid positions had been created, one for assisting students with applying for college and scholarships and another for a senior class advisor. White said these positions will now be combined to have one person dealing with all of the issues of the senior class.

The school board adopted a policy dealing with changes to the highly-capable program for advanced students. The administration is working on new procedures for compliance. Needs of the students who are highly capable must be considered and provisions made for the different ways in which these students learn. An advertisement about this program will appear in the newspaper toward the end of September. Community members, parents, and educational staff persons can nominate students. The nominated students are screened and, if they meet the qualifications, they are tested and a special program is written to make sure their needs are met.

White reported on how the district spent the $20,000 received from the Carol M. White Physical Education Program grant. Direction for spending the grant money is provided by the School Health Advisory Committee. During the last school year, it was used to provide healthy snacks for Mobius Science nights, provide swim passes for children receiving free and reduced-fee lunches, purchase outdoor fitness equipment for physical education classes, develop and put on a two-week Chef Camp, support expansion of the weight room, pay the district’s share of the cost for sending the school cooks to Culinary Boot Camp and pay for program coordination and data tracking.

Principal’s report

Principal Jamie Nelson, reporting on the first day of school, expressed admiration for Odessa students, especially the relationships and caring shown by older students for younger students. She said the issues with road construction will continue to be addressed. She announced that there will be a back-to-school night September 10, with everyone meeting first in the high school gym and from there going to classrooms for an open house. Parents and students can also attend breakout sessions to learn about things going on at school such as the Camp Wooten experience for sixth-graders, the Running Start program, new nutrition requirements, Advanced Placement classes, online Spanish classes and others.

Facilities

Justin Parr, facilities director, said he and his staff had completed an expansion of the weight room in the gym basement. The rest of the new carpet and changes to the carpeting on the stairs will be done in the next couple of weeks. He said it was a different summer, as he did not have to coordinate the work of different contractors, instead doing more work with district staff. He said he felt the district’s facilities were in good shape for the beginning of the school year, even though the road construction project had required shutting off the water several times, each time requiring flushing of the school’s system.

Finances

White reported $671,744 in reserves at the end of July. She told the board the transportation vehicle fund will borrow from the general fund to pay for the new bus when it arrives. The money will be paid back at the end of the fiscal year when the depreciation payment from the state is received. The board approved the relevant resolution.

State requirements

The district is required to report on the minimum basic education compliance each year. Compliance measures include 450 hours and 180 days for kindergarten. Odessa offers fewer days but many more hours than required, so is in compliance. The second compliance measure requires that students in grades 1-12 have a 180-day school year. Odessa students in 1-12 grades have a 177-day school year with a State Board of Education waiver for three conference days making up the required 180 for compliance. The third compliance measure is 1,000 hours of instruction; Odessa offers 1087 hours. The fourth compliance measure is 19 credits for high school graduation. Odessa far exceeds this with a 27-credit requirement for graduation.

The board adopted a new “Health and Wellness” curriculum for the required health class for sophomores. The curriculum was recommended by the new Health and PE teacher Jeff Nelson, our School Health Advisory Committee and the Curriculum Advisory Committee.

Other

Pastors Jon Hayashi and Mark Squire were present at the board meeting after submitting a letter to the board requesting that, if possible, the district not schedule events in conflict with established church events. The board signed a letter to all of the Odessa churches indicating that staff members who regularly schedule events have been informed of the issue and were encouraged to avoid conflicts whenever possible. Hayashi commended the early-release schedule on Wednesdays, saying this schedule has worked well for church scheduling except for a few minor glitches.