OFFICIAL MINUTES OF
THE SPECIAL MEETING
OF THE MOUNTAIN HOME SCHOOL BOARD
OF EDUCATION
A special
meeting of the Mountain Home School Board of Education was held on Thursday, January
7, 2010 at noon in the Administrative Office Board Room. The following members of the Board were
present for the meeting: Robert Nelson, Neal
Pendergrass, Jason Schmeski, Doug VanDolah, Lisa House, Ben Strider and Bill
Wehmeyer. At 12:00 noon Mr. Nelson
called the meeting to order and welcomed Board Members, Administrators,
Faculty, Media and other guests to the special meeting.
Mr. Pendergrass made a motion, seconded by Mr. VanDolah, to approve the
agenda as presented. The motion was unanimously
approved.
Dr. Scriber explained that Dr. Tom Kimbrell, Commissioner of the
Arkansas Department of Education (ADE), is asking all school districts in
Arkansas to ratify the Race to the Top effort established
by the ADE. It is for a competitive
grant that Arkansas is applying for through the federal government. If Arkansas gets the grant, it will not come
into play until the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
The money received will be used for
all districts, but primarily for those poorer districts. Money will be used for professional
development in an effort to raise teacher’s knowledge base to affect growth for
students. Race to
the Top is somewhat of a continuation of No Child Left Behind. We are already doing most of the things that
are prescribed within the Memorandum.
He spoke to Dr. Kimbrell’s office this
morning to clarify some unanswered questions.
Specifically one issue that concerned him was the teacher/principal
evaluations being tied to student growth.
Since Mountain Home is already at a high level in their academic test
scores, growth is not as easily obtained in our district as it would be in a
district that is not performing well.
Dr. Kimbrell assured him that schools that are already at a good
performance rate are okay. As long as
schools meet their AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) they will be acceptable. The State will be looking for normal growth
which is meeting benchmarks from grade level to grade level. If a school is in an AYP alert status and
teacher/principal evaluations come into play, then he was told it would affect no
more than 25% of a person’s evaluation.
Another question Dr. Scriber had was
whether it will affect core subject teachers (i.e. Math and Language Arts) more
than the specialty area teachers (i.e. Spanish, Agri, Art, etc.) since there is
a measurement of growth for core areas but no measurement for growth in the
specialty areas? The State Department
will be working that out. He was told
that the largest systems in the state that have strong teacher unions have
already signed off, as well as the AEA organization itself.
Dr. Scriber went on to say that he has a high respect for Dr. Kimbrell. He is a well-respected man who has been in
education for a long time. He knows
education and knows what is best and therefore Dr. Scriber does not believe
that he would try to steer the districts in a wrong direction.
There is a FOI (Freedom of Information) matter included in the
Memorandum. That is, by signing on with
the other districts in Arkansas; we are required to the freedom of information
as it relates to programs instituted for academic improvement. For instance, if we were to come up with a
program or idea that we implemented to improve students academically we are
obligated to share that with the other districts for free. We could not sell our idea to another
district.
Arkansas is really ahead of the curve in the benchmark testing. We won’t be going through another big program
where we establish benchmarks. We must
use data to assess our development. That
is nothing new for us. We’ve already
been doing that for years.
There was some discussion that followed. The board consensus was that although
Mountain Home might not benefit as much financially from the grant if received,
it’s the right thing to do for education in Arkansas.
Mr. Pendergrass made the motion to approve Mountain Home School
District’s participation in the Memorandum of Understanding with the State
Department of Education for the Race to the Top. Mr. Strider seconded the motion.
The motion passed unanimously.
Inclement Weather Change for
Hackler Intermediate School Tour
It was the consensus of the board to postpone the tour of the Hackler
Intermediate School since the wind chill was below freezing.
ADJOURNMENT
At 12:30 p.m. the meeting was adjourned.
______________________________ _________________________________
Robert
Nelson, President Jason Schmeski, Secretary