Familiar face to return to school board

WORLAND – Through unconventional means the Worland school board met on Monday night and held a public meeting through phone and Zoom to discuss future plans for the school as well as approve a new board member.

The new board member voted in by the existing members to replace former member Joe Bishop was Susan Scheuerman. Scheuerman is a former member of the board, and served previously from 1996-2016 and decided not to seek re-election in 2016. Scheuerman will remain in the position until the election in November, where her seat, as well as David Tommerup and Dean Dupree’s positions will be up for grabs.

There were four applicants for the vacancy.

Superintendent David Nicholas brought to the board’s attention all of the preparation that has been going into an online curriculum since the school’s decided to shut down on March 16 to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

With the decision being made in haste, teachers have been working non-stop to help find a way to make sure that every child has access to the online materials that will be created by the staff in the district. At this time the plan is only to have school online from March 30-April 3, but Washakie County School District No. 1 is currently waiting for further instruction from the State Department of Education if online schooling will continue past those dates.

According to Nicholas, high school and middle school students should have their Chromebooks that have been assigned to them in order to begin using Google Classroom as their hub for these learning resources, and it is anticipated that third-grade students and up will be using this same hub.

According to South Side principal Ken Dietz, South Side parents will be picking up packets of work on Monday, and will be sharing information about whether or not computer and internet resources are available at home with Chromebooks. Arrangements will be made if a student is unable to access the material. Further information from other schools was unable to be obtained before press time, and can be found by reaching out to each individual school.

In the discussion regarding the coronavirus, the board discussed what would happen with commencement, and discussed what would happen to the original graduation date of May 17. Nicholas told the board the only way the original ceremony will happen on that date is if the restricted gatherings ban is lifted, but board members suggested an idea of holding a celebration over the summer if it comes to that.

OTHER BUSINESS

The board approved on first reading paid maternity leave as well as changes to the sick leave bank in policies 1.15 and 1.16. This was first brought up last month that would guarantee six calendar weeks of paid leave for a natural birth, and eight weeks for a caesarean section (C-section) birth during the school year.

The board discussed a possible change to board policy 2.29 regarding retention, which would see language changes to start the process earlier and have a retention scale put in place to hold discussions regarding the possibility of a student being retained. This item is expected to be up on first reading next month.

Technology Director Kathy Wise was approved for resignation in order for her to retire.

The board accepted a bid from Pavement Maintenance Inc. (PMI) out of Cody for $78,909 to seal coat the parking lots at south side along with the middle and high schools.

Beau Anderson was hired as a part-time special education paraeducator at South Side, and Amy Burns was approved for hire as the registrar at the high school.

Amy Reid, Jennifer Horath, Emma Christoffersen, Shelley Bailey, Jeff Lang and Angela Richardson were approved to continue to their contracts. Zach Lempka, Ashley Weaver, Francis Harding, Julie Atkinson, Vanessa Woffinden and Donald Anderson were approved for the next year of their initial contracts.

All middle school sports coaches were re-approved for the winter season of 2020-21. Brian Hopkinson will be coach seventh-grade girls basketball with no assistant at this time, Charity Glanz will coach eight-grade girls basketball with assistant David Villa, Duane Riedel will coach seventh-grade boys basketball with assistant Jeremiah Dobson, and Brian Hopkinson will coach eighth-grade boys basketball.

Matt Meuller will coach wrestling at the middle school along with assistants Joe Winkler and Jeff Lang, and Amy Burns will coach swimming along with assistants Teri Livingston and Dustin Sumida.

Business Manager Jack Stott reported that there have been over 400 students at the schools each day to receive lunches throughout the week, and there were bids placed for the middle school entrance but no decision would be made until next month as the bids were just placed.

BUDGET SESSION

The school board held a short initial budget session prior to the full meeting. Health insurance increase highlighted changes from the Legislature as they changed it to where staff that are filled by the district will get 100% of the health insurance increase. Remaining “staff,” otherwise known as “ghost staff,” that are part of the model but not an actual employee in the district only get 50% of the increase.

With Average Daily Membership (ADM) down over the last few years, using a three-year model shows a decrease of 30 students, and will see an anticipated decrease in revenue of around $360,000 for the district due to this declining enrollment. The district is down 52 students from one year ago at this point in the year.

A decent external cost adjustment will help offset some of this loss, but otherwise the district is anticipated to reduce expenses either through either fewer employees, adjusting insurance or adjusting retirement. Activities are anticipated to be untouched as it would take the cutting of multiple activities to equal the cost of one full-time employee.