School Board meeting recap

by Cole Arndorfer
 
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On Thursday, October 19th, the Grain Valley Board of Education met for their monthly meeting. The meeting included a report over the district’s audit, a comparison in pay across the metro, the superintendent’s report, and an item of unfinished business.
 
Under reports, the board heard an audit presentation from Brian Eckhoff of Westbrook & Co. Eckhoff led the school district’s audit over last year’s financials and he came to give a brief overview of the financial statements. Eckhoff said overall, the district had a good financial year minus some project expenditures.
 
Eckhoff described the audit as, “as clean as you can get.” He added that there were no recommendations for improvement by the firm.
 
Following the report, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Nick Gooch presented a comparison in teacher pay. In this comparison, Gooch broke down where Grain Valley ranked against other metro area districts. For teacher pay, the district ranked 11th in the metro in base salary, up three spots from the previous year. Grain Valley added $1,500 to their standard base pay in order to move up. For master’s degree level teacher pay, the district stayed at 13th even after adding to that salary. Gooch said that they have looked at the stats and have outlined ways that the district can improve on these numbers in order to become more competitive, not only in teacher pay, but across all positions.
 
Superintendent Dr. Brad Welle said that their goal is to come back to the next meeting with a solid idea of what it will take to improve on the competitiveness of the pay schedule. Gooch said his hope is to be able to present the board with a new salary schedule by the end of the calendar year.
             
In his superintendent report, Welle first outlined a $10,000 grant the district received from the Grow Your Own program. The purpose of these funds is to work with students who are interested in becoming teachers. The district can use these funds for dual-credit courses, paying college scholarships, and for paying students internship stipends for summer school internships working in the classroom. Welle said that the high school has a course underway this year that is gauged toward teaching students how to be teachers.
 
Welle also reported the district’s community survey is underway. He also reminded the Board of the Bright Futures Luncheon which will take place on November 14, at noon, at the Grain Valley Community Center. He said that this year is Bright Future’s 10-year anniversary and he is looking forward to celebrating that.
 
In unfinished business, the board discussed the Scott Belcher Scholarship nominee. This scholarship comes from the MSBA. Participating school boards may submit a nominee for a regional award and an opportunity receive consideration at the state level. The board went over the applications and after discussion, they chose Mia Simmons as this year’s nominee.
 
The next school board meeting will take place on November 16th, at 6 pm, in the Leadership Center.