On Monday, February 7, the Garfield School Board held their regular board meeting at Escalante High School. This meeting is the fourth meeting held in about a seven-week period. While the previous three meetings were mostly focused on the building of the new Escalante Elementary, this meeting was a return to normal business for the board.
Becky Dalton, the mental health coordinator, reported first. Becky described the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) efforts in the district. In all elementary schools, the 20 teachers throughout the district can utilize five-minute SEL content, called Move This World, in their classes three times a week. SEL teaches students skills in problem solving, conflict resolution, and stress management.
Southwest Behavior Heath Center is a local resource that the district collaborates with. Two programs available in all three of GSD high schools are Hope Squad and the Youth Prevention Coalition. Hope Squad is a program that addresses mental health and suicide awareness among peers, and the Youth Coalition focuses on substance abuse awareness and prevention. Becky explained the Safe Utah app allows students to reach out for immediate help if the student is experiencing a mental health crisis.
Rod Quarnberg, CTE Director for Garfield and Kane School Districts, presented an opportunity to expand the concurrent enrollment program in the district by creating a concurrent enrollment center at Panguitch High School. The classes offered to the students will be through Dixie State University. The grant is for $150,000 to remodel space, purchase equipment, flooring, and furniture. This center, consisting of three to four classrooms, may take the place of the ed net room, art room, and unused locker room. The offered classes will be available for Bryce Valley and Escalante students as well. Most classes will likely be remote classes, but there is a future opportunity for district teachers to be certified to teach concurrent enrollment classes in this space.
Superintendant John Dodds presented a Capital Projects List. The list was compiled by principals and custodians from each school in the district. John prefaced the discussion with the old adage: “Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without.” But he also explained that we don’t want to wait until something breaks to fix it. When presenting the list and the priority assigned to each item on the list, he explained his criteria for ranking each individual item. The six criteria are: 1. Immediate Safety. 2. Cost—“If something is cheap and easy to do, we just get it done.” 3. Daily Function of the Building. 4. Convenience—“if we have an opportunity to fix it (while a contractor is working on a different project) and if we don’t it will cost us more.” 5. Predicted Failure. 6. Appearance.
The board would like to move toward a preventative maintenance model going forward and discussed how to keep track of expected life of projects to plan capital projects better for the future. Top priorities for 2022 include: BVES playground structure replacement (safety), BVHS gym floor (safety), and BVHS track water system among other things.
John then went on to explain that many students do not have access to internet in their homes. Cheryl explained that a previous IT director made plans to install hubs to expand the district’s internet reach. John will work on a plan to address this.
In the January 27 board meeting Phoebe Wiseman reported “turnover of para-educator positions for students with the most significant learning needs is creating a gap in our consistency in special education.” Phoebe recommended the district add a column to the fee schedule called IDEA Para-Pro column increasing the amount of money paid per hour for paraprofessionals. This column is for paras who serve students who require diapering, are violent, are wheelchair bound, or have intellectual disabilities. Phoebe reported with streamlining and budgets from the federal government that the district currently has the funds for this raise in the SpEd budget.
Then in revisiting the SpEd topic in the February 7 meeting, Business Administrator, Lane Mecham presented the financial analysis of the increase in Special Education Paraprofessional pay scale requested in the previous week’s board meeting by Ms. Phoebe Wiseman. Currently, SpEd paras make $14.69/hour, and Phoebe recommended a pay increase to $18/hour. The total cost increase is $3,600 per paraprofessional per year, with a total cost to the district of $32,400 per year.
The wage increase proposal had only just been seen by the board, and Ralph Perkins suggested the board take more time to analyze. John concluded his comments with a plea for understanding on both sides: “The work behind this [proposal] has been going for months and individuals have been working for months. So a lot of times for the board, it feels brand new, but to individuals who have been working through it, it feels like a very long process.” The board voted unanimously to table the recommendation.
The board reviewed the 2022-2023 school calendar and discussed a public comment asking for the second quarter to end before the Christmas break. Ending before Christmas break will line concurrent enrollment students up with the college break and has the added convenience for projects to be complete before the long break instead of after. The adjusted schedule may require the school year to start earlier in the fall.
In the January meeting, John reported on a meeting with Hughes Construction about the Bryce Valley baseball field parking lot. Hughes has agreed to restore the parking area and hopes to have the project complete in time for the season next fall.
The board accepted the readings of various policies, admired a “thank you” card from EES students, and set the next board meeting for March 17 at 5:00pm at Panguitch Elementary.
– The Byway
Read about more recent school board meetings here.