Messmer newest board member at Highland

By Randa Wagner

John Mess­mer was sworn in as the newest High­land Board of Edu­caiton mem­ber at the Octo­ber 10 reg­u­lar meet­ing. Mess­mer replaces Galen Chap­man, who resigned last month.

The term Mess­mer is fill­ing expires at the con­clu­sion of 2013. Board Pres­i­dent Eric Thacker and Super­in­ten­dent Dr. Bill Dodds wel­comed Mess­mer, say­ing he was cho­sen from among four other out­stand­ing can­di­dates. Dodds reminded meet­ing atten­dees that there are four seats on the board that will be on the bal­lot next year, and the com­mu­nity will have an oppor­tu­nity to select from a num­ber of qual­ity candidates.

Board mem­ber reports

Bill Short stated the schools will be get­ting grade cards from the state after all. He also gave credit to the past school board for pro­vid­ing addi­tional class­rooms that allowed for poten­tial growth (cit­ing other dis­tricts that did not).

Short also referred to an arti­cle in USA Today that stated Advanced Place­ment (AP) classes are widen­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents across the nation. In com­par­ing High­land to other dis­tricts, he felt High­land has the advan­tage with their col­lege level class options.

Super­in­ten­dent Dr. Bill Dodds explained that stu­dents at High­land have the oppor­tu­nity to earn the equiv­a­lent of two years of col­lege dur­ing high school, as well as dual-credit courses that are not advanced place­ment. Post-Secondary Enroll­ment Options are also offered at Highland.

“So if a stu­dent were to plan every­thing out just right, they would leave here with two years of col­lege,” Dodds said, not­ing it pro­vides a sav­ings in col­lege credits.

“These col­lege cred­its are part of a Trans­fer Assur­ance Guide,” Dodds explained. “So whether you get it at MTC, Ohio State, Miami of Ohio or wher­ever it is, it goes to any of these other col­leges. Our stu­dents take more col­lege classes than any other school in the area, accord­ing to MTC’s sta­tis­tics of last year.”

“We’re also look­ing at adding pos­si­bly three more next year,” High School Prin­ci­pal Nathan Huff­man said, “bring­ing back the AP Sta­tis­tics, AP U.S. His­tory and Finan­cial Account­ing 2. Right now we have nine oppor­tu­nies with dif­fer­ent types of course work to get col­lege credit. That’s not includ­ing any­thing that stu­dents can take online as an inde­pen­dent study.”

“It’s really a credit to our teach­ers,” Dodds added. “It cre­ates a lot of extra work for them. We always asks for vol­un­teers. It’s a lot of extra work and no extra pay, so it’s a trib­ute to our staff.”

Board Pres­i­dent Eric Thacker affirmed the col­lege sav­ings through his daughter’s extra course work.

Supt. Dodds said six-week grade cards were issued for the mid­dle and high stu­dents; ele­men­tary stu­dents are still on nine-week grad­ing peri­ods. Dodds also noted that on reports of eli­gi­bilty for stu­dent ath­letes, stu­dents grades are sig­nif­i­cantly higher this year than they were last year at what would have been a nine-week period. Dis­trict reports cards were due to come out Octo­ber 17.

Dodds also men­tioned the Third Grade Read­ing Assess­ment Pro­gram is in effect for this year and Prin­ci­pal Shawn Winkelfoos, Prin­ci­pal Deb Knecht­ley and Cur­ricu­lum Direc­tor Amber Clay-Mowry are pre­pared and have a plan.

Clay-Mowry gave an update on the Race to the Top pro­gram, say­ing they are look­ing at ways to help each child grow and reach goals, focus­ing on progress-monitoring tools so they are aware of where each child is aca­d­e­m­i­cally. She said they are also look­ing at part­ner­ing with other schools to make their funds go fur­ther and aggre­gate some of their resources to seek addi­tional fund­ing to pro­vide the best oppor­tun­ties for students.

Trea­surer Jon Mason pre­sented the Octo­ber five-year fore­cast to the board along with title fund­ing for the com­ing year.

Pub­lic Participation

Marengo Vil­lage Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Mike Baker expressed con­cern over the Marengo youth ball­fields remain­ing a public-use area. He sug­gested the board could donate the green space used for ball­fields in Chester­ville and Marengo to High­land Park to allow the park to expand into those areas. This would ensure the other prop­er­ties would remain like an ‘open park’ area for the kids to play in, he said.

“The board’s been con­sis­tant [in that] we want the util­ity of the green space to remain with the kids,” Thacker said.

“I keep hear­ing that but then I keep hear­ing scut­tle­butt about other things,” Baker said. “I would feel a lot more com­fort­able if it was in the hands of peo­ple that’s going to ensure those prop­er­ties are going to stay for the use of the community.”

Gena Wiley, serv­ing as a sub­sti­tute teacher with the schools, com­mended the staff. “I have seen such ded­i­ca­tion and hard work, it’s amaz­ing,” she said, cit­ing that the learn­ing process is all-inclusive with the chil­dren who are learn­ing dis­abled. “It’s a won­der­ful atmos­phere,” she said.

Mid­dle School Prin­ci­pal Rob Ter­rill said parent-teacher con­fer­ences were com­ing up Novem­ber 15, after the sec­ond six-week grad­ing period, and again in the Spring in late February.

Ter­rill also said they are in the process of look­ing into the robot­ics pro­gram as a club this year, look­ing how they could fit it into the cur­ricu­lum even­tu­ally. Nine robots are cur­rently at the mid­dle school and they have applied for a grant for three more. Ter­rill said they hope to get between 30 — 40 stu­dents involved in the club this year with three stu­dents to a team.

Ele­men­tary Prin­ci­pal Winkelfoos reported third graders took the fall read­ing achieve­ment test and results were mailed out. Infor­ma­tion about the Third Grade Guar­an­tee was mailed out to par­ents as well. A plan is devel­oped for each child who is not read­ing at the level they should be and their progress is monitored.

Parent-teacher con­fer­ences for the ele­men­tary school are Novem­ber 8 and 15 from 4 — 7 p.m. A fall music con­cert is sched­uled for late Novem­ber. Novem­ber 2, stu­dents will be cel­e­brat­ing fall with a parade around High­land Park. Par­ents and vol­un­teers will be pass­ing out candy and dress­ing up start­ing at 1 p.m with kinder­garten­ers, then other grades.

Winkelfoos also said a new club, God’s Kids, started at the ele­men­tary school. The pro­gram is run by three area churches and a hun­dred stu­dents are par­tic­i­pat­ing. Last year the club had 40 — 60 students.

High School Prin­ci­pal Nathan Huff­man said parent-teacher con­fer­ences for high school stu­dents were sched­uled for Octo­ber 18. Fresh­man were to take the North­west Eval­u­a­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (NWEA) tests; sopho­mores would take the PLAN, and the top 30 juniors would take the PSAT test. Grades for high school stu­dents are issued elec­tron­i­cally as a cost sav­ing mea­sure. Paper copies are not sent home until a par­ents calls in and requests it.

An after-school inter­ven­tion pro­gram is being started for any stu­dent who feels they need extra help. The pro­gram is for an hour Mon­day through Thurs­day. A school store is under con­sid­er­a­tion and in the devel­op­ment stage.

Trans­porta­tion Super­vi­sor Loretta Copeland reported bus routes are set and buses log over 2,000 miles a day on their routes. Counts are: 992 stu­dents are on the high school route, 892 on the ele­men­tary level, 44 on the Tri-Rivers bus and 31 in the preschool pro­gram. The two new buses are on the road and the gate is work­ing at the garage now. The cam­eras on the buses are work­ing correctly.

Food Ser­vice Direc­tor Deb­bie Hart said num­bers are down on free and reduced lunches. There are 699 stu­dents (38%) in the pro­gram. A ‘bur­rito bar’ is a new fea­ture that is being tested as an entree with students.

Employ­ment Recommendations

The fol­low­ing requests were approved:

Mater­nity leave for Sarah Thistle­waite; a one-year con­tract for Erin Car­pen­ter as School Health Nurse; sup­ple­men­tal con­tracts for Ash­ley Ball, Head Var­sity Girls Soft­ball Coach; Derek Bower, Head High School Girls Track Coach; Zach Hilborn and Rob Mosher, 7th Grade Boys Bas­ket­ball Coaches.

The next reg­u­lar High­land School Board meet­ing will be held Tues­day, Novem­ber 13 in the high school cafe­to­rium at 7 p.m.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Oct 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.