Nancy Hurley is a Great Asset to the School Board!

There was a lot of information shared at the meeting tonight. Many changes are being proposed at the High School, all of which have merit, none of which is without some kind of challenge for implementation. The most immediate proposal is for 2 days per month to become "late start" days for students (9:30a.m.) in order to have professional learning community (PLC) collaboration time for the teachers. This will enable staff to better focus on determining strategies that work and using them consistently across the curriculum. This sounds great and could reap enormous benefits as time goes on. There are baseline measures in place to determine if student achievement is improved per the administration. This is an important piece that many educators neglect in their enthusiasm to implement new ideas. Kudos to the High School to remember this critical piece of the puzzle.

Other ideas included introducing a Senior Project graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2014, a proposed "wall of fame, wall of service," etc. to honor alumni in the armed services and those who have gone on to outstanding achievements in areas such as music, drama and sports. Mr. Keister also updated the board on results of the comprehensive counseling pilot program in 9th and 11th grades. It was warmly received by most parents.

I was right that money was freed up from this year's budget so the district could rescind the lay-off notice and keep a great teacher fully employed in our district.

There was no general turnout of Poms for the approval of Co-curricular Participation policies. I guess we can all read them online by next week to see what changes were made.

Nobody but me seems to object on general principals to the change in the NHS policy. The Bullying Policy proposed changes may need to be tweaked to follow the guiding principals the DPI has yet to publish for a deadline in August. They might just wait until the DPI issues the guidelines before taking it to third reading.

What I was most impressed with during this meeting was Nancy Hurley's insightful questions and poise throughout. She especially had very good questions about the Senior Project regarding equity, consistency, cost to the district, scope and credit that just drove to the heart of the matter. What a wonderful addition to the School Board she is. Thank you for serving, Nancy.