School Board
The Cameron School Board met in regular session on Monday June 18.
Assistant Superintendent Chris Shanks spoke to the School Board about changes coming from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Shanks said one of the changes he believes will affect the district a lot is direct certification. How poverty has been determined in the past was according to free and reduced lunch numbers. All those students are grouped into Standard 2, next school year will be the same as it has been, but a year from now the way they will measure poverty will be by the true level of poverty. So a student that might be on reduced lunches, will not be included. Shanks said he needs to sit down and do the numbers to see what the achievement levels are of the students in direct certification, but he is guessing they are not that high. He told the board, he just wanted them to be aware of it as it will be reflected on the annual performance report (APR).
Dr. Matt Robinson explained to the board that if DESE begins to tie funding to the APR it may result in reduced funding, which is how the district gets title funds. The potential loss could be over 50%. According to Shanks, the title funds are already in the red and going to require some budget flexing. The title funds are all tied up in salaries and there is not many Title 1 teachers in the district, the budget is very modest.
Shanks will continue to update the board as more information becomes available.
Robinson went over a report on energy conservation and improvements that could be done to the schools to improve energy uses and have some costs savings down the road. The total costs for improvements will be around three million dollars. The projected savings are about $117,000 a year, over the course of 15 years the energy savings would be approximately $2.1 million dollars and includes all buildings. Robinson will bring the next report he receives to the board and then the board can discuss them and make decisions on what direction they would like to go.
The High School update included information on online registration, which has been updated and the website will be updated over the summer. Online registration will be open on August 1 and CHS will be open August 6-8 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. for students and/or parents to use computers to do online registration if necessary.
The high school is working on piloting MPA growth for the 18-19 school year in Algebra I and ELA II. The leadership team has met several times since school concluded to complete the final process to become an Exemplary PLC high school. The final work was submitted for review on June 13.
Summer school began on May 23. Health and personal fitness finished on June 6. Physical Science, Drivers education, credit recovery and strength and conditioning continued through the end of the month.
The Cameron Veterans Middle School (CVMS) report included information that the CVMS will be part of the pilot for NWEA with Algebra 1. NWEA will be used instead of Engrade for benchmark assessments. The middle school is looking at purchasing Edmentum to use as a resource during Rtl and after school MAP tutoring. The practice MAP assessment will be given to students at least twice through the school year. Data from the practice assessments and NWEA will be used to determine after school MAP tutoring, and daily instructional differentiation practices, among other things.
Teachers at CVMS have been working on writing standard aligned learning scales. These scales reinforce alignment with Missouri Learning Standards to classroom assessment and instruction.
CVMS is using CVMS.update.weebly.com, the district’s Facebook page and the district’s Twitter account are being used throughout the summer for communication with parents, students, and the community.
Members of the Cameron Intermediate School (CIS) Missouri Model District (MMD) team attended the 2018 MMD Summit in St. Louis. During the summit they were given the opportunity to meet with other districts joining the program and discuss plan implementation at CIS. Representatives from Parkview, the high school, and middle school also attended the summit, allowing them all to plan as a district.
Homeroom assignment letters were completed by teachers on their last contracted day and were able to send out letters with homeroom teachers assignments and Back to School information. The 3rd grade Back to School night will be August 15 at 6 p.m. The Back to School night is intended to help alleviate some of the anxiety as students transition from Parkview’s schedule to a departmentalized schedule. The 4th and 5th grade Back to School night will be August 16th at 5:30 p.m. During both events, transportation and food services will be available for questions or deposits.
The Parkview board report included information on the change to a six-day rotation for specials classes to reduce class size and offer guidance lessons to classes on a more frequent basis. As a result, Parkview reports 241 fewer minor behavior incidents during the specials classes. The six-day rotation will continue in the next school year.
Parkview plans to adopt the school wide Positive Behavior Support program next year to assist in managing student behaviors and also to fulfill the emotional and social needs of the students. Assistant Principal Lannigan will lead the project along with a teacher committee. The program is recommended on the state and federal level as being one of the most beneficial behavior management programs available. This program will be incorporated with the best aspects of the current BIST program to meet the needs of the students.
Next year Parkview is increasing the number of students receiving early childhood services by increasing from four to six classrooms for preschool. There will be three classrooms at Parkview featuring AM and PM groups; Lil Dragons Preschool will have two classrooms featuring full-day services; and PAT families with preschool age children will have a classroom at Parkview featuring weekly preschool lessons for parent-child learning groups.
Parkview open houses will be held at the following times:
Open House will be held at the following times:
· Preschool Open House - August 15th
· Parkview Preschool - AM Group - 5 pm; PM Group 6 PM
· ‘Lil Dragons Full-Day PreK (formerly known as MPP) - 5 pm
· K-2 Open House - August 14th
· Kindergarten - 5 pm; 1st Grade - 5:45 pm; 2nd Grade - 6:30 pm
· New Student Enrollment is scheduled for August 6, 7, and 8.
Dr. Robinson then spoke to the board about the district budget. If all revenues and expenses come in as expected the final total budget for all funds will be $18,877,178.12. The Board accepted the budget as reported.
The next meeting of the Cameron School Board will be Monday July 16 at 7 p.m.
