The December CDA School Board meeting on Monday, December 6th was primarily standard and uneventful. Read the play by play on my Telegram channel here.
I'm going to pull out the high points into an outline format so you can quickly read through the happenings.
Heather Tenbrink was sworn in as the newly-appointed Zone 3 Trustee.
Jennifer Brumley, Lisa May and Tambra Pickford received awards for excellence in service for their time on the board. It took a minute to realize they received awards because they are being replaced by Tenbrink, Allie Anderton and Lesli Bjerke. Anderton and Bjerke will be sworn into their seats at the January general meeting.
Financials are down. The districts have always been funded through the state based on average daily attendance and it is state statute that the district has to be able to provide for every child in the district, no matter if they go to public school or are homeschooled.
In 2020, due to C0vid, the state legislature temporarily changed the funding to be based on enrollment, but that reverted back to an average daily attendance for the 2021/2022 school year.
Due to reverting back, the CDA School District has over-budgeted by $2.6M. Director of Finance Katie Ebner said that because the legislature put the rules back to how they were pre-C0vid, and because it's state statute that the district has to prepare for EVERY child in the district, it's their fault that they have to take federal funding.
In their own words: If the legislature or State Board of Education does not approve enrollment based funding, the District could be short an estimated $2.6M in budgeted state funding. This is below the already reduced state funding we budgeted, so it would be a funding shortfall adding to the existing $6.1M operational deficit that has been backfilled by ESSER funds.
Financials
Assessment & Accountability Data
CDA School District spends approximately $7,861 per student, below the state average of $8,361.
4-year cohort graduation rate is DOWN. Cohort=graduating in 4 years after entering high school. C0vid may have had an impact on student graduation rates.
There is a 0.1% increase in graduating after 5 years.
Graduation rates have also been broken down by race - in case you want to know.
Students had the opportunity to take the PSATs in the last month.
PSAT 8/9 is for grades 8-9, PSAT/NCSQT is for grades 10-12.
Only 5% of students took the PSAT.
There is a 1.5% increase in math proficiency.
Only 54% overall were in the 75th percentile or higher.
Overall, 28% of the tests were below 25th percentile.
The annual general meeting will be held on January 3, 2022. Lesli Bjerke and Allie Anderton will be sworn in at that time.
The Shocker brought forth a consulting company contract to find substitutes for the district instead of the district finding their own. They will be contracting with ESS to recruit and train substitute teachers for an additional $52,266 per year instead of doing it themselves. The company, which is based in Hillsboro, OR, will send someone to work out of the CDA District office so that the money "stays local." All substitutes will no longer be under the CDA District payroll, they will move under this new company. No word on if there was a prior discussion about hiring someone within the school district to do this job instead of hiring an outside company. The 3 present board members (Casey was travelling) approved this contract.
Policy 3500 has recently been reviewed but because it was about student health screenings, Head Nurse Nicole Piekarski wanted to make sure that the terminology matches the state language. No changes have been made tonight, they will circle back around after Spring Break.
That's all the big points for the meeting; this should be the last meeting of the year with the next one scheduled for January 3, 2022.
I am testing g the comments for Matt. :)