Hello and Happy 1st Full Week Of School!
It's already been an exciting week. In one day (Monday) we had an eclipse AND a school board meeting. Super exciting, right? Okay, well, it was for me. We had a packed-house for a meeting, which was really great to see. What did we discuss? Our agenda can be found here. A helpful tip for all readers is to make sure you read the "district reports" PDF. This is compiled by each building and is rich of information about the activities within each building, special education, and athletics. In a nutshell, the highlights (in my opinion) included: 1) Approving the tax rate for the 2017-2018 tax rate. This move codified the tax levy increase that voters (you) approved in April. Mr. Downs recommended that we voluntarily roll-back (not tax) the full amount (saving individuals .05 cents/$100 assessed value). I know this tax will hit all of us in December when we receive the tax bills. However, know that I am grateful on behalf of our district and children. 2) We received a brief update on the Hallsville Foundation. This working group is moving forward in positive ways. It's important to remember that this Foundation is a long-term game of being able to make a positive impact on the district, though. The team is working on the founding documents and should make good progress into creating a formal organization in the coming few months. 3) Selfishly, I'll promote that I brought up the student representative (or advisor) to the school board. We had a good discussion on this and next steps included Mr. Daly tasked with bringing this topic up with the student council leadership and faculty to possibly develop our own policies. Discussion will continue. Here is a sample policy from the Crawford County R-1 district. 4) The board also discussed the importance of wanting to increase involvement and inclusion of recognizing our faculty, staff, students, and community who are doing great things. We'll be working to implement some sort of formal recognition of those teachers who are recognized, students or student groups who are recognized at competitions, and other bragging points about our district. It takes a village to raise our children -- and it's important we honor those who succeed and those who help us reach new heights! 5) Lastly, representatives (the ownership) from OPS, our contracting cleaning and maintenance company, was on-hand and fielded questions and concerns from board members regarding the quality and timeliness of summer cleanings. The Board is working to fix concerns from faculty, staff, administrators, and our own experiences with the school not being kept-up to our expectations. We appreciated OPS' willingness to attend and work with the district on concerns. However, we also encouraged faculty and staff to report concerns to their building administrator to remedy the situation and not to be become complacent or apathetic. In other news, the board held a special meeting on August 11th with an MSBA representative who encouraged and brought advice on items to ensure that our district remains and grows in transparency and uses best practices in the solicitation and bidding of items. This was informative and incredibly helpful to me. As we move forward in the beginning stages of discussion about what a no-tax-increase bond renewal could look like in April 2018 -- the board is actively beginning the process of reviewing architectural/engineering proposals to assist with this. Throughout the fall -- the board plans to have work sessions to discuss and begin to map out this process. We look forward to your input and ideas! I'll conclude by saying a huge "THANK YOU" to all of those parents, teachers, staff, and administrators who have made the first week of school a success. There are (and will) always bumps in the road in these first few weeks (ie bus route changes) and those bumps are quickly and widely shared in our small community. However, I'm proud of how professional, helpful, and dedicated our folks are in handling these and the everyday challenges that they encounter. If I can be of any assistance or even just be a listening ear -- feel free to reach out! Remain blessed in the coming few weeks! Craig
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AuthorHallsville resident. Foster Parent. School board member. Politico. Jesus Follower. Cardinals Fan #MizzouMade Archives
June 2020
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