RC Board hears report on PL 221 student progress

By BILL RICHMOND

City editor

Members of the Randolph Central school board Tuesday heard a report from Curriculum Director Lisa Chalfant on the recently released Public Law 221 placement categories.

"It's all about progress," Chalfant said. "Our placements didn't change a whole lot from last year."

The school corporation overall was listed in the "academic progress" category. The listings for individual schools within the corporation were: Baker Elementary, academic progress; Willard Elementary, exemplary progress; Deerfield Elementary, exemplary progress; Driver Middle School, commendable progress; and Winchester Community High School, academic watch.

Public Law 221 (PL 221) is Indiana's comprehensive accountability system for kindergarten through high school education. Passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 1999, the law aimed to establish major educational reform and statewide accountability standards.

To measure progress, PL 221 places school corporations and schools into one of the following five categories based on improvement and performance data from state ISTEP+ assessments (listed in order from best to worst): exemplary progress; commendable progress; academic progress; academic watch; and academic probation.

Chalfant said PL 221 is Indiana's response to No Child Left Behind.

"There are many high schools in Indiana that are in the watch status," she said. "We're very thankful that we have no schools on probation. We're working to continue this progress by addressing our students who are not reading well. That's pivotal to every other area of learning."

Board member Dana Cox said there should be greater accountability for the test scores.

"Where is the accountability," Cox asked. "I think we need some kind of a different answer from administration than what we've had in the past."

Chalfant said local educators and administrators have poured over the test data to determine why some schools are not making the progress it is felt they should.

"We feel it all boils down to reading ability and that influences everything else," Chalfant said. "We are working to address that situation. It's not a problem that is going to be fixed overnight by any means.

"We are trying to address those issues. We have to create good reading strategies in elementary school before they move on."

Board member Scott Hawkins said he believes Randolph Central teachers and administrators do a great job interpreting and reacting to test scores, identifying problems and addressing them.

The Indiana State Board of Education first adopted PL 221 category placements for the state's public and accredited nonpublic schools beginning with the 2005-06 school year.

Superintendent Phil Wray reported on changes in the school meal charging procedure recently agreed upon by corporation principals.

"We have struggled for the past year to try to come up with something," Wray said. "It's frustrating. We tried to come up with some sort of a procedure that is consistent with all five buildings."

The new procedure doubles the number of school meals, breakfast or lunch, a student is allowed to charge without repayment. Students previously were limited to charging- that is, to eat without paying on the promise to pay later- three meals, now the number is six. Once a student pays the money owed for prior meals he or she can continue to charge.

When one has charged six meals without repaying the balance and tries to charge a seventh, the student will be given a peanut butter sandwich and milk.

"It's not necessarily the kid's fault he doesn't have the money," Wray said. "It's mostly an elementary school problem."

The principals' plan also moves the cash registers to the beginning of the cafeteria line, rather than the end of the line.

"It's got to be better than what we've been doing," Wray said.

Wray also reported that the State Department has recodified the procedure for creating a school corporation budget. Under the new requirement, all money that is spent must be broken down as line items by individual buildings. For instance: if the corporation purchases copier paper in bulk that is used at all its buildings, the budget must now reflect how much of the total cost for paper is used by each individual facility.

"This has been challenging for me," Wray said. "It will be an absolute nightmare for Karen and Linda (corporation treasurer Karen Peters and deputy treasurer Linda Dodd). It means lots of extra detail work and there's a quick turnaround from one system of doing things to another."

"The first year, it's going to be a pain- but by the second or third year we're going to find ourselves saying this new information is useful."

Board members approved for the school corporation to join the East Central Indiana Natural Gas Cooperative. The natural gas cooperative is comprised of 20 school corporations that buy natural gas in bulk when prices are low at substantial savings.

"We would've saved $11,000 if we were a member last year," Wray said, "There's no telling what it will be next year. The people who joined last year are sure glad they did. If it doesn't work for us this year, we'll bail out."

He said as more school corporations join the cooperative, the price each individual member pays for gas will decrease.

The board also approved a 1-year extension of Wray's contract with a two percent raise.

"Because of Mr. Wray's excellent leadership, far reaching expertise and longevity I move that we increase his salary by 2 percent and his retirement annuity by one-half percent," said board member Fred Pries. "That would be a total package price of $2,398 from July 1 of this year through June 30 of next year.

The board also approved the following overnight field trips:

€ For WCHS student Sara Neville to attend the National FCCLA Leadership Conference July 7-12 in Anaheim, Calif. At the conference, Neville will participate in a competitive event on applied technology, attend workshops, attend meetings and lectures and network with other FCCLA members.

Although her family will pay for the trip and lodgings, school board approval was required as Neville will be representing the school corporation at the conference.

€ For the Winchester Community High School girls basketball team to stay overnight June 15-17 at a Ball State University basketball camp.

€ For WCHS cheerleaders to attend a cheerleading camp July 7-9 at Manchester College.