School board approves contract extensions

The Unified School District 333 board of education approved contract extensions for six administrators and accepted the retirement of another during its regular meeting Monday night.
Contracts for Beverly Mortimer, superintendent of schools; Quentin Breese, junior-senior high school principal/activities director; Corey Isbell, junior-senior high school assistant principal/athletic director; Derek Holmes, middle school principal; Audrey Pingel, Learning Cooperative of North Central Kansas (LCNCK) director; and Debra Reha, LCNCK assistant director were extended for one year.
Administrative salaries will be set at a later date.
The board accepted the retirement of elementary school principal Chris Fall.
Also accepted by the board was the retirement of Sandy Kling, LCNCK interrelated teacher in Republic County, the resignation of Elisa Gerard, high school social science instructor and the extended leave request from Julie Doeble, LCNCK interrelated instructor in Washington County.
During the meeting Breese and Bryce Wachs, assistant junior high principal, presented and discussed the outlook for career and technical education in the district.
The district is continuing initiatives that not only prepare students for college, but also prepare them to be career ready when graduating from high school
Administrators and teachers had looked at the current curricula and courses to align them with new pathways and career clusters.
“These pathways have been around for several years. They are becoming more defined,” Breese said.
Individual career education plans will be established to help guide students.
“We are not deciding their future for them. We are giving them about six general areas, and from there they can branch out to several different areas,” Breese said.
USD 333 will look to develop career and technical education relationships with postsecondary institutions such as Cloud County Community College and North Central Kansas Technical College in Beloit.
Mortimer said that the district is looking at changes in career in technical education in part because of the Gov. Sam Brownback’s school funding proposal.
Brownback has proposed ending the current. vocational weighting factor. The same dollar amount would be placed in vocational and technical education, and distributed to school districts based on enrollment in technical programs next year.
Districts would no longer receive career technical education aid for a program also offered by a postsecondary institution located within 30 miles, but the state would pay tuition for all high school students enrolled in career and technical education courses or programs offered by a community college or technical college, and provide funding for additional costs for transporting high school students to postsecondary programs.
During her report on school financing, Mortimer said that Brownback had put everything into one bill, and that hearings are now taking place.
Mortimer said that the governor’s plan does not provide state funding for capital projects.
Districts will be given unlimited authority to raise local revenue from property taxes for a portion of operating and maintaining public schools, including transfers to the capital outlay fund.
“If we have to pay for things by raising local taxes, that is not a good thing,” Mortimer said.
Also during the meeting, school counselor Kevin Steinert, made a presentation on the bullying  survey given to students in grades 5-8.
Steinert said that in order for an act to be considered bullying, three things have to occur. It must be an intentional act, it must be hurtful and it must be repeated.
“I am happy to report that the overall condition of our grades 5-8 is desirable,” Steinert said, “Do we have areas to address? yes.”

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