May 15, 2015 at 4:00 PM - Superintendent's Weekly Update to the Board of Education

Description: 
I'd like us to see if we can finish the board meeting before the start of the Spring MS-HS Band and Choir Concert at 7:30 PM. The board agenda is light with lots of consent items.  Please call Jim, Mary or me prior to the board meeting with questions/concerns about anything on the agenda.  Thank you.

Description: 
Please see attached Mr. Swenson's letter to the board regarding RHS graduation.  The ceremony begins at 8:00 PM on Friday, May 22. 

Description: 
I received these two items after publishing the board agenda on Wednesday.  Because of the timing I'd like the board to add them to Monday evening's consent agenda.

1.  Donations for community education summer 2015 baseball and softball
2.  Add custodial positions for the summer of 2015

The added custodial positions will be helpful in completing regular summer tasks along with the extra work related to the construction project.  One example is we're planning to tear out the competition gym bleachers and replace them with the south gym bleachers.  Although this task will consume lots of the custodial time we can save $22,000 doing it ourselves.  This will cover much of the costs for hiring the additional summer custodians.

Below Is Tony's thoughts/requests.  I'll come to the board meeting supporting his recommendation.  

a.  Joel Golden is one of our substitute custodians. He is interested in working 40hrs per week thru the summer months.  He has maintenance experience and is very self motivated and reliable. He would help us in the High School.   He could be paid entry level custodial wages.

b.  Julie Kloss is interested in helping us thru the summer months.  She would be a great addition to the summer cleaning staff as she already knows what to do.  She would get her current wage.

c.  Janet Warzecha is interested in helping us thru the summer. She also would be a great addition to the cleaning staff at the elementary as she already knows what to do. She would get her current wage.

The Elementary will be very busy with the unit ventilators, gym face lift projects ETC.  Without a doubt contractors will either be needing myself, Mike or Bill (when available) for questions constantly.  This definitely will take someone's hands-on time away and is an impossible thing to estimate.

The project at the High School will be starting too, lots of contractors and questions to answer I'm sure of it.  My hands on time will be limited too. I need a summer crew that knows what to do with little direction. Using our existing staff is imperative.  Bill will be around 12 or so hours a week as usual, I would love to have him here more but his retirement would be affected.

Tony Duevel 

Description: 
Bill has agreed to another year of work under the same pay, benefits and conditions as this year.  Because he is not asking for a salary or benefits increase I'm recommending the board go ahead and approve it Monday evening. 

Description: 
Joan Nichols requested to visit with me about her summer pay for teaching extended school year (ESY) instruction to students with special needs.  

In the past the school district has paid one elementary and one MS-HS ESY teacher $18/hour.  The $18/hour matches the reimbursement teachers are given for curriculum writing time.

I called Suzanne Busacker to ask her the proper going rate in school districts and at Mid-State.  Her response was ESY teachers are generally paid their same hourly rate as during the school year.  

Joan is paid approximately $37/hour if you divide her salary by 183 days and 8 hour working days.  Vicki Blomme's regular hourly rate is $30/hourly.

My recommendation for $31/hourly is it matches the REM contract in how housebound instruction, adult education, and behind the wheel drivers education teachers are all paid $31/hour.  

Do know the summer ESY teaching is NOT a part of the REM contract and we're not interested in adding it.  The simplest reason why is annual agreements allows the school district to set the pay rate at any amount it wants to in a given year. 

  

Description: 
This will be the last year the district pays salaries/benefits for two community education youth wrestling coaches.  In addition, it's my recommendation for it also to be the last year we accept donations from the Wrestling Club to pay salaries/benefits for coaches.  I believe its' best for all community education coaches to be 100% volunteer regardless of who is able and willing to pay.

Description: 
There are two flexible benefits documents that are in the board agenda for Monday.  One is the Flexible Benefits Plan Adoption Agreement which is our agreement plan with Educators Benefit Consultants (EBC).  This lists the services we use through EBC and outlines the terms of our plans. The second document provides information on all of the services that EBC provides (whether or not we use them) and the guidelines and regulations that must be followed in order for their clients to be compliant.  They have asked us to update our agreement with them because of changes caused by the Affordable Care Act.

Description: 
If you're interested where the money comes from for our wellness program it's NJPA.  They give us $3,000/annually as part of our participation in the health insurance plan.  This year we spent approximately $2,000 and will carryover $1,000.

Description: 
David was originally not planning to revise and update our current technology plan for another year.  The requirements for e-Rate reimbursement dollars changed and with it an updated technology plan is needed.  David said minimal was updated in the plan and matches what we're doing with the student 1:1 initiative.  The plan is ready for approval. 

Description: 
Mary has left for the weekend so I do not have the exact balance remaining in our staff development fund.  I know, however, we have sufficient dollars to pay for all staff development requests this summer and probably even next school year.  We have a healthy staff development budget.

Description: 
We have 73 students enrolled in kindergarten and another 7 in our preschool program who will likely register too.  As always we'll pick up a good handful or more kindergartners over the summer months.

Description: 
We already had the board approve construction contracts for the elementary gym remodel and tile in MS-HS hallways.  Remember we're doing this to keep the project moving along.  

Mary would like the board to do a second approval of these and future construction contracts in the monthly regular board meetings.  The reason is the monthly board meetings have "official minutes" for the school district's records.  We'll continue to pay after each weekly approval. 

Description: 
Today we opened the single bid we had on the elementary classroom unit vents.  St. Cloud Refrigeration (SCR) was the lone bidder.  Matt said there were over a dozen interested contractors at the pre-bid meeting.  What happened is a good question.  The simplest answer is they're all booked up for the summer.  But that's okay...

We had budgeted $700,000 for the replacement of the classroom unit ventilators.  The base bid came back at $505,000 plus an alternate bid of $116,000.

What does it buy us?  The $505,000 replaces everything we intended PLUS they included the two separate AC units that needed replacing at the elementary and MS/HS for approximately $40k-$50k each ($80k-$100k total).  This is awesome!!!

The alternate bid of $116,000 will enable us to replace the entire elementary building's pneumatic controls with digital.  Digital will also be in the classrooms with the new units.

In the end we spend $621,000 of the budgeted $700,000.  We're unexpectedly receiving the two AC units for a total of $80k-$100k plus all new digital controls throughout the elementary school building for $116,000.  

Depending on how you add it all up and think about it it's $300,000 in our favor.  :-)            

Description: 
Please see attached Ron Kresha's recent legislative updates for us area superintendents.  We'd agree with first dollars on the formula, then facilities, and lastly universal preschool.    

Description: 
Please see attached the weekly bills for your approval.