March 9, 2015 at 7:00 PM - Regular Meeting

Description:  Pat Ford owner of Ford Appliance here in Mineral Point has donated a used refrigerator and washing machine to The Kitchen Project, the Wednesday after school Cooking Club. These are certainly  thoughtful and appropriate gifts to help facilitate this program.  

Description:  If interested in addressing the School Board during the Communications portion of the meeting, please stand and state your name when the Board President requests communications from the citizens.

Description:  A member of the board may request any item to be removed from the consent agenda and defer it for a specific action and more discussion.  No vote of the board will be required to remove an item from the consent agenda.  A single trustee's request shall cause it to be relocated as a action item eligible for discussion.

Description:  The board will begin discussion on a staffing budget at the March meeting (attached).  Highlights of proposed staffing for next year:

Not rehiring a special education position (following Jeanette Galle’s retirement) due to a decrease in special education students.  The remaining middle school and high school would combine special education teachers to meet the needs of all students.
No longer pay CESA 3 O&M and instructional coaching services.
No longer pay Upland Hills for OT/PT services.
Remove ELL pay as an additive.
Accept an early retirement of a custodian and replace with two part time custodians not benefit eligible

Total savings:  $210K

Hire an OT/PT person and an O&M person and share/invoice other schools for these services.  The cost would be less than contracting services with CESA 3 and Upland Hills.  
Hire a teacher to reduce class size.
Hire an ELL teacher (.10) through Title II Funds (State agency grant – does not effect the budget)

Total cost:  $191K


With the anticipated revenue generated by invoicing for O&M ($110K) coupled with the savings from above the district has effectively saved close to $128K.

Description:  Mr. Brogley supports the recommendation to continue to staff fifth grade with three teachers.  If a teacher is not added, a fifth grade teacher would move to sixth grade.  If a teacher is added, the fifth grade team would remain in tact and a teacher would be added to sixth grade.  

Description:  Highlights of the School Calendar
  *   Start date September 1
  *   Labor day falls after the first week of school
  *   The additional vacation day leaves six contractual dates after paid holidays in a 190 contract
  *   Student contact days are the same at each building
  *   Calendar contractual days beyond student contact days are different at each building based on building needs
  *   CRT's are proposed as exclusively PLC's weekly on Wednesdays beginning at 2pm

At the elementary there will be "Meet Your Teachers" night on August 27 (taking 2 hours from the August 26 PD date).  A floating workday in August (August 17-24) will be used to complete the standards-based report card work.  The elementary staff would then not report on January 18, 2016 as a result of completing the floating work day in August.   There will be no All School Fair in 2016. 
 

Description:  Ms. Dahl requests $220 for one graduate credit from Viterbo University.  Per Ms. Dahl's contract credit reimbursement requires board approval.

Description:  Residency FTE declined unexpectedly this year.  For purposes of calculating school aid this means less revenue for a population of students that dropped under 725 for the first time.  

However, 725 is an important number for a categorical aid called sparsity aid.  Sparsity aid is dependent on two factors, low enrollment and students per square mile.  Mineral Point’s students per square mile was always roughly 5 per square mile which has always qualified MP for sparsity aid but the school enrollment was always too high (until now).  

Schools eligible for sparsity aid are to receive $300 per student.  Last year schools only received roughly $243 per student as the state was not able to fully fund sparsity aid.  The Governor has proposed in his budget to increase funding for sparsity aid to attempt to fully fund the aid for the next two years.  

Conservatively the district is projecting an additional $250 per student in state revenue that was unexpected.  This changes our budget scenario and at this time I no longer classify the district as in a budget reduction scenario.  Instead, MP funding is more likely to be flat after taking into consideration rising costs for compensation, benefits, and property insurance (to name a few).