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The Grain Valley Board of Education held their regularly scheduled meeting Thursday, June 29, 2023 at the district’s new Leadership Center following an open house and official ribbon cutting.
First on the agenda was recognitions. The board recognized the hard work and achievements of 15 Special Olympics athletes around the district. Several of those athletes competed in the state Special Olympic Games this year. The board then heard a presentation on the sale of general obligation bonds from L.J. Hart & Co. In their presentation, the company outlined key factors that would play into the district’s sales of the bonds, what the company expects the outcome of the sales to be, and what the process for selling the bonds would look like. Following the presentation, the board took action, unanimously authorizing the resolution for the sale of the general obligation bonds with L.J. Hart & Co. After the presentation from L.J. Hart & Co., Director of Nutrition Services Andy Hughes delivered a report on the food services department. In his report, Hughes noted that next year, all seven school buildings will be fully cooking with fresh food each day, with Matthews Elementary being the last to upgrade. Hughes also said that the department’s goals for next school year include improving the speed and efficiency of serving at Grain Valley High School, and finding solutions to the growing student lunch money debt. That debt sits at nearly $30,000 at the moment. Next was the administrative dashboard where Superintendent Dr. Brad Welle highlighted the increase in employee healthcare spending, noting that the number resets annually the first of July. During his report, Welle provided an update on the construction at Grain Valley High School, noted that multifactor authentication would begin to be implemented when logging into all online district services, and highlighted the district’s first back-to-school fair happening on August 10 at North Middle School. First in unfinished business was action on the 2023-2024 school-year budget, which had been discussed in prior meetings and was approved unanimously by the board. Second was action on the certified staff salary schedule for the upcoming school year. This schedule was revised to give each certified staff member in the district an increase in pay. The salary schedule was approved by a 5-1 vote. Board Vice President Jeff Porter was the lone “no” vote. Mr. Porter said, “I do believe that all of our certified staff needs to be compensated properly and have that increase. I think on this particular salary schedule, I look at it a little bit differently as far as where those dollars should go. Not that I don’t think all the staff is deserving… I just have a different view on how it could’ve been handled.” Following the certified salary schedule vote was action on the non-certified salary schedule. Like the certified salary schedule, the changes in the non-certified staff schedule were aimed to give each of the non-certified staff in the district an increase in their pay. This was passed unanimously. The next item was action on the administrators’ salary schedule. According to Welle, this was the first update in the administrators’ salary schedule since it was written nearly ten years ago. This was approved unanimously. The last item in unfinished business was action on the issue of video broadcasting future school board meetings. After some discussion on what video broadcasting the meetings would mean and what equipment would be needed to make this possible, the issue was unanimously approved. Dr. Welle and Dr. Gooch both stated that the board room in the Leadership Center was outfitted and wired in order to sufficiently be able to set one or more cameras up to broadcast the meetings to citizens who couldn’t make it to the meeting in person. The board will get to work finding the equipment needed to broadcast their meetings as soon as possible. The first item of new business was discussing options for a new community engagement plan. At the last regularly scheduled meeting, the board passed a motion to create a new community engagement plan and after creating a rough draft of a new plan, the board discussed to include in the plan. The next item was discussion of the people that are on the curriculum review committee. Welle shared a list of people that had signed up and agreed to be on the committee. The board discussed that the committee was heavy on female representation and how to possibly increase male representation on the committee in the future. The board also discussed how the committee might report their findings to the teachers and the board. Welle said that the committee would select a chairperson or chair people to present their findings to the board and the teachers at a special meeting. Next was a resolution calling for the appointment of a blue ribbon commission to study Missouri’s funding formula. Welle discussed with the board that this is something that the board has an option of voting on to determine if they would like to do or not. If the board votes to participate they will ask the Missouri Legislature to form a blue ribbon commission to take a look at school funding in the state and how it could possibly be improved. The last item in new business was discussing the 2023-2024 school board meeting calendar. The board discussed what may need changed on the calendar draft. One possible thing that the board will consider is meeting twice each month as opposed to once per month. The next board meeting is scheduled for July 20 at 6 pm, in the board room of the new Leadership Center. Comments are closed.
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