Highland board discusses security concerns, technology plans

By Randa Wagner -

School secu­rity con­cerns and new tech­nol­ogy plans were dis­cussed at the High­land Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing Jan­u­ary 23.

Supt. Dr. Bill Dodds addressed the pub­lic on school safety mea­sures, in light of recent inci­dents around the coun­try at pub­lic schools.

“There is a great deal of dis­cus­sion right now across the coun­try regard­ing the safety of our chil­dren while they are in our schools.” he said. “At High­land, stu­dent safety is a pri­or­ity and we are com­mit­ted to keep­ing our schools secure. With the sup­port of the school board, and the assis­tance of the Mor­row County Sheriff’s office, we are work­ing to have a school resource offi­cer at Highland.”

He believes many schools around the coun­try are doing the right thing for secu­rity, but ‘there are times you can’t do anything.’

“The only thing that has stopped many of these peo­ple is the response time: some­one get­ting there and stop­ping it.,” he added. “Unfor­tu­nately, our dis­tance from an offi­cer is pretty far, so I’m concerned.”

He noted a num­ber of options are being explored through­out the coun­try to keep schools safe. He believes the best option is a well-trained pro­fes­sional who knows the best prac­tices for safety and can respond to inci­dents, ‘an indi­vid­ual on cam­pus whose pri­mary focus is stu­dent safety all day.

“That is the rea­son we have made this a pri­or­ity at this time,” Dodds said.

Board mem­ber Loren Altizer detailed a plan he has been work­ing on to imple­ment the One-to-One (Lap­top) Ini­tia­tive (essen­tially, pro­vid­ing every staff mem­ber, teacher and stu­dent with a portable lap­top, note­book or tablet PC for con­tin­u­ous use both in the class­room and at home).

“It’s very impor­tant the board of edu­ca­tion rec­og­nizes we need to keep up with the cur­ricu­lum being pre­sented from our teach­ers to the stu­dents in the tech­nol­ogy world,” Altizer said. “Kids learn more now through a device — more so than a book. Mr. Dodds and I embarked on this jour­ney almost a year ago to move into the One-to-One Ini­tia­tive here: to put a device in each student’s hands so they can learn elec­tron­i­cally; put the book away and not pur­chase more books. It means less paper traf­fic through the facil­i­ties, less waste, less ink and toner car­tridges. It’s a much greener envi­ron­ment but, more impor­tantly, a fresher approach to teach­ing our kids and allow­ing our teach­ers to be able access a mul­ti­tude of cur­ricu­lum options quickly and easily.”

The goal, he explained, is to get one device per stu­dent in the dis­trict of nearly 2000 students.

“We’re think­ing maybe 1500 is the goal for now,” Altizer said. “When we approached the board about it, we cal­cu­lated it was going to cost $800,000. They told us to find another source of tech­nol­ogy. This board has an over­whelm­ing com­mit­ment to not go to the pub­lic and ask for more money.”

Altizer and Supt. Dodds have met with numer­ous par­ties within the com­mu­nity that are offer­ing dif­fer­ent types of devices.

“We believe we have found a way to send our teach­ers home at the end of this school year with devices in hand to build their cur­ricu­lum and come back for the 2014 school year ready to teach using tech­nol­ogy instead of a teach­ers plan­ner and a book,” Altizer said. “We have found that many dis­tricts in the coun­try have moved to this (method) and there is a wealth of infor­ma­tion via the web and through the Cloud (web based tech­nol­ogy source) that teach­ers and stu­dents can con­nect to. The teach­ers can also access meth­ods other teach­ers in the coun­try are suc­cess­fully uti­liz­ing. This vir­tual envi­ron­ment are what kids are grow­ing up in… now we’re going over to the teach­ing side and let­ting our teach­ers pull that in and use it. The most impor­tant aspect of this is teach­ers being able to access their vir­tual world and gain from what other teach­ers have already done.”

Altizer said the goal is to have 1500 devices by August of 2013 with a zero cost to the pub­lic. They have 500 units cur­rently that stu­dents at the mid­dle school are using dur­ing the school day.

Remem­ber­ing Dick Slack

Board Mem­ber Bill Short took a few moments to pay trib­ute to Dick Slack, a for­mer High­land trea­surer, who recently passed away.

“Dick was a High­land man,” Short said. “Any­thing the school needed, any­thing he could do, he did it. The Richard Slack Edu­ca­tional build­ing was named for him, and jus­ti­fi­ably so. (He was a) good High­land per­son and instru­men­tal in assist­ing Jon when he came in.”

“If you go to know Dick, you’re blessed,” said Trea­surer Jon Mason. “He was a tremen­dous indi­vid­ual. He had a lot of adver­sity in his life and he never com­plained a bit. He spent 53 years in a wheel­chair but you wouldn’t know it to talk to him. He was a fam­ily man, a High­land man through and through, and we’ll miss him.”

Administrator’s reports

Supt. Dodds reported High­land is part­ner­ing with the other three county high schools as well as Gilead Chris­t­ian for a grant to upgrade their recy­cling program.

“We have a good recy­cling pro­gram, but the intent is to add another bin in the dis­trict and pro­vide some resources for our cus­to­di­ans to get the mate­ri­als out of the school,” he explained.

Regard­ing the edu­ca­tional process, Dodds said H.B. 555 changes the way teach­ers teach, how admin­is­tra­tors work, how stu­dents are assessed and how schools are graded.

“Unfor­tu­nately, it changes every week,” he stated. “I believe we are in great shape at High­land, because we stay ahead of the game. Schools will be graded dif­fer­ently, start­ing in two years. The num­ber of tests stu­dents take will increase. We have always got­ten our school grade based on how many stu­dents passed the tests. We’ve done very well with that. That has changed now. What they’re going to mea­sure now is the growth of the stu­dents — not whether they’re going to pass the test. That changes how teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors are evaluated.”

He noted the High­land dis­trict was rec­og­nized in a national pub­li­ca­tion for their work in for­ma­tive assess­ments through the Race to the Top initiative.

“We had a visit from the Ohio Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and they were impressed with the work we do at our ele­men­tary and mid­dle school with our assess­ments,” he said.

Supt. Dodds called out the board and rec­og­nized them for their ser­vice to the school and community.

“This month is school board appre­ci­a­tion month,” he said. “The posi­tion on a school board is not always a glam­orous posi­tion. They ‘get it from all sides.’ They han­dle it well, and we have a group with the good inten­tions with the stu­dents’ inter­ests in mind. They’re all about the kids.”

Supt. Dodds handed each board mem­bers a cer­tifi­cate prais­ing them for “exem­plary lead­er­ship and ser­vice to pub­lic schools.”

Supt. Bill Dodds rec­og­nized Jim Whar­ton for his work through the years with all High­land Sports and the research for the Hall of Fame candidates.

Whar­ton thanked Dr. Dodds and the com­mu­nity, then men­tioned there is an open­ing on the Hall of Fame selec­tion com­mit­tee. The com­mit­tee meets four times a year and any­one inter­ested can con­tact Dr. Dodds or any of the High­land Principals.

High School

High School Prin­ci­pal Nate Huff­man announced their Busi­ness Acad­emy was going to the Regional Com­pe­ti­tion Jan­u­ary 31 with 21 stu­dents com­pet­ing in 16 events. Also, 76 stu­dents, staff and com­mu­nity mem­bers are cast in Highland’s upcom­ing pro­duc­tion of Okla­homa! He said this is the largest cast Joe Bell has had in 29 years.

A blood drive was sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 31 at the high school. Huff­man said so many peo­ple signed up, the gym­na­sium will be used instead of the Bloodmobile.

“We’ve already qual­i­fied for a schol­ar­ship for at least one of our stu­dents due to the num­ber of blood dri­ves we’ve held this year. The more peo­ple give blood, the higher the schol­ar­ship level goes.”

Huff­man said he and a few other staff mem­bers were going to meet with Pear­son to look at pos­si­bly cre­at­ing a dig­i­tal learn­ing acad­emy at Highland.

“This would be a way for us to offer about every course that’s out there,” he said. “Whether we offer it here or not, stu­dents would be able to take it online vir­tu­ally through Pear­son: every­thing from AP eco­nom­ics to psychology”

Huff­man reported ASVAB test­ing inter­pre­ta­tions were just com­pleted in the Eng­lish classes, so stu­dents know where they stand with pos­si­ble mil­i­tary careers. (ASVAB is the required mil­i­tary entry exam that deter­mines eli­gi­bil­ity for train­ing programs.)

The FAFSA (Free Appli­ca­tion or Fed­eral Stu­dent Aid) com­ple­tion work­shop was sched­uled for Jan. 28 in the com­puter lab to help stu­dents and par­ents apply for col­lege funding.

Abby Gar­cia is Highland’s Franklin B. Wal­ter nom­i­nee at the MOESC, and Saman­tha Den­man is the Cham­ber of Commerce’s Stu­dent of the Month.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­ogy from Mar­ion Tech will be pre­sent­ing to all fresh­man classes Feb. 28 in the Eng­lish classes.

Schol­ar­ships are posted in the guid­ance office.

“There’s a lot of schol­ar­ships and local money out there that nobody applies for,” Huff­man said. He encour­aged par­ents and stu­dents to stop in the guid­ance office and look into them, stat­ing ‘there’s a lot of money that goes unclaimed.’

Mid­dle School

Mid­dle School Prin­ci­pal Rob Ter­rill said the win­ter sports sea­son is wind­ing up, then tour­na­ments start. He said the wrest­ing team has brought home three tro­phies thus far. The VEX Robot­ics team has been com­pet­ing every month and has a mid­dle school event com­ing up Feb. 20.

“They’ve actu­ally been com­pet­ing against high school teams and they’ve done a won­der­ful job,” Ter­rill said.

The High­land Spelling Bee is Feb. 5 and the top five fin­ish­ers there will go to the county bee at High­land Ele­men­tary School.

Con­fer­ences are going to be Feb 21 from 2:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Sev­enth Grade Lan­guage Arts and Read­ing Teacher Judy Sell­ers will be retir­ing after 35 years in education.

“We’ve started NWA (North­west Eval­u­a­tion Asso­ci­a­tion) test­ing in the dis­trict this is a pilot for us right now,” Ter­rill said. “It gives us instruc­tional strate­gies for us to use with our kids in the class­room. It also gives our kids an oppor­tu­nity to see what the com­mon core ques­tions look like now that they’re doing com­mon core, and also what kind of assess­ments are com­ing in the future. In 2015, state assess­ments are going to be elec­tronic, and that’s part of the rea­son for the move to the One-to-One (Lap­top) Ini­tia­tive so our stu­dents have a bet­ter opportunity”

Ele­men­tary School

Ele­men­tary Prin­ci­pal Shawn Winkelfoos rec­og­nized stu­dents cho­sen to par­tic­i­pate in the upcom­ing pro­duc­tion of Oklahoma!

A Win­ter con­cert is com­ing up for grades 2 — 5 at 7 p.m Feb­ru­ary 26. Winkelfoos com­pli­mented Eileen Ruff­ing for bring­ing her groups from the mid­dle and high school to per­form for the ele­men­tary stu­dents. Another per­for­mance is com­ing up on March 1st for the fourth and fifth grade students.

NWA field test­ing has also started at the ele­men­tary school, Winkelfoos noted, to help accli­mate stu­dents to the com­mon core and new assess­ment formats.

Food Ser­vices

Food Ser­vice Direc­tor Deb Hart said taste test­ing has been under­way to find food items stu­dents will like, with food bro­kers offer­ing their prod­ucts for tast­ing. Because of new reg­u­la­tions, Hart said some of the foods they must offer now are not always the most popular.

“We’re start­ing early to try to find the right prod­ucts for next year,” she said.

Regard­ing My School Bucks, a new option is using Amer­i­can Express online pay­ment sys­tem so par­ents can pay online for stu­dents’ lunches. There is a $1.95 fee to apply money to a student’s account, but all fam­ily mem­bers using the ser­vice can go on for that fee, Hart said. If a par­ent puts $50 on My School Bucks, a bonus is one free meal on one student’s account.

Mid-year staff eval­u­a­tions and on-site reviews are done, Hart noted. On-site reviews (for lunch aides) are required by the state and must be done by Feb. 1.

“We’ve been selected to be on a com­mit­tee for the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Edu­ca­tion Coun­cil (MEC) to for state com­modi­ties and work­ing on menus,” Hart reported. “We are one of a group of 12 that has been asked to build a menu that will help drive up the num­ber of prod­ucts purchased.”

Hart also informed the board Highland’s free and reduced meals count has gone up by 28 since Octo­ber. Cur­rent per­cent­age for free meals district-wide is 34%.

Pub­lic participation

A res­i­dent asked the board about the 2-hour delay pol­icy and what the rea­son was for delay­ing buses the day before.

Supt. Dodds said the fore­cast was for a –15 degree wind­chill and the admin­is­tra­tion was not com­fort­able with hav­ing chil­dren wait­ing for buses in that tem­per­a­ture. Also, the buses may have had trou­ble start­ing (though they are plugged in overnight).

The res­i­dent said he feels it doesn’t sets a good exam­ple for stu­dents as to what they can and can’t [tol­er­ate] ‘if we can’t send our kids to school when it’s cold.’

“When I was a kid, we pretty much went to school every­day,” he said. “Obvi­ously, it’s a big has­sle for the par­ents with chil­dren in grade school to try to make arrange­ments when school is delayed. There was only a four degree dif­fer­ence between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., so that two hour delay didn’t make a lot of difference.”

“Day­light is a fac­tor as well,” Dodds replied.

“The only other con­cern I have is your com­ments that you believe the school dis­tricts in the past have done a pretty good job with secu­rity in the schools,” the res­i­dent said. “I’d like to pass along some infor­ma­tion Fox news reported on the Col­orado the­ater shoot­ing: the shooter had sev­eral the­aters to choose from and he chose the only one that did not allow con­cealed carry — all the oth­ers did. I’m just try­ing to say if you want to deter these kinds of attacks, the best thing to do is have some­body with con­cealed carry on the prop­erty and let it be known pub­licly. That could be a deter­rent in itself to some­one who wants to com­mit these kinds of crimes.”

Employ­ment and Personnel

The board approved the fol­low­ing: Melissa McGuirk as 2 hr cook-cashier, ele­men­tary; Jerry Hen­drick­son, high school cus­to­dian, 2nd shift; Denise McClure and Ruth Daugh­tery, EA01 bus aides, split; Dustin Green, m.s. head track coach; David (Chip) Wil­son, ms. asst. track coach; Kevin Squiresm m.s. 7th grade girls bas­ket­ball; Joseph Bell, Play direc­tor and Play Art Director.

A leave of absence was approved for ele­men­tary teacher Rebakah Bussa.

Other busi­ness

The FAMS II grant was approved in the amount of $14,520 for salaries and $12,000 for sup­plies. The I-Credit agree­ment with TRECA using the Plato Cur­ricu­lum for Eng­lish, math, sci­ence, and social stud­ies for 2012–2013 was approved.

The fol­low­ing amounts and rates as deter­mined by the county bud­get com­mis­sion was approved by the board:

Gen­eral fund $3,833,954.00 at a rate of 19.0

Per­ma­nent improve­ment $117,158.00 at a rate of .60

Class­room Facil­i­ties Main­te­nance 77,158.00 at a rate of .50

Facil­i­ties Bond $895,517.00 at a rate of 4.40

The mas­ter agree­ment between High­land and the United Elec­tri­cal, Radio and Machine Work­ers of Amer­ica Local 741 was approved.

The next reg­u­lar High­land Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing will be held Feb­ru­ary 13 at 7 p.m. in the high school cafetorium.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Feb 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.