A Big Dog challenge, an MMR Improvement Plan, school district goals and activities funding were some of the things discussed during Monday’s 35-minute school board meeting.

 

Five employees were recognized at the annual RTS Educational Support Staff Recognition Banquet last month. They include Bill Thoma (middle school), Dewey Sommerdorf, Tami Woodard, Jesse O’Neill (high school) and Gary Gaebel (intermediate school).

 

Ryan Sommerdorf and Kami Ziebarth will be serving as the student representatives on the school board this year.

 

Aaron Jurek and Dr. Malone will conduct a school board member orientation with Connie Robinson Oct.11. They will schedule another meeting with her after the election. Robinson will also be attending the MSBA Phase I, II, & III trainings.

 

The PK-12 October 1 enrollment for the school district is 2,882 in comparison to 2,833 last year. 

 

The Becker School District received a Support Our Students grant from MDE. This grant will provide a fulltime social worker at the primary school and a full-time social worker at the intermediate school. The grant pays 50% of the positions for the first four years and 25% of the positions for years five and six. The total value of the grant over six years is $226,000.

 

Becker Schools introduces Becker Innovates, the next big step for the district’s innovation culture. Becker Innovates is an ongoing crowd-sourced innovation program that draws from our organization’s cognitive resources to create innovative solutions, which address the opportunities that exist within Becker’s schools.

 

Malone says the school board should finalize goals for the 2017-18 school year. The first three goals were agreed upon last month. The fourth goal, to improve school climate, was discussed Monday.

 

 

The website to participate is at: bigdog2016.oim.spigit.com.

 

So far, the school board has seen 117 visitors to their website with 39 contributors, 23 ideators and 32 voters getting involved.

 

Data was released last month for two critical measures of student academic performance for the 2015-16 school year.

 

1). One year’s worth of growth (positive z score), as measured by NWEA and MCA testing was attained by seven of 16 (44%) of the grade levels/subject areas tested.

 

2). The MMR (Multiple Measurement Rating) for Minnesota Schools was released Sept. 1. The components include proficiency, student growth, achievement gap reduction and graduation rate. Becker’s ranking in comparison to other schools in the state is 40 for the intermediate school compared to 45 in 2015. The ranking for the middle school is 98, compared to 90 in 2015. The ranking for high school is 45 compared to 62 in 2015.

 

3). It was noted the school should act swiftly and boldly to change their system so students can attain more academic progress in the areas of English and mathematics. 

 

With that responsibility and obligation as a school district, it was suggested the school board enact an MMR Improvement Plan and  recommended to approve an assistant principal position at the intermediate school and approve a reading coach position to assist teachers with reading instruction skills.

 

The district cost of $206,000 ($136,000 intermediate school assistant principal; $70,000 reading coach) would be included in the revised FY 17 general fund budget. 

 

Dance, hockey, lacrosse, trap shooting, marching band and robotics were approved for funding for the 2016-17 school year. The net cost for all six programs comes in at $54,485.

 

The next Becker School Board meeting is Nov. 7 at 6:30 p.m.