Bob Foos
A week after their annual special meeting devoted to receiving student achievement data from each school in the district, Webb City R-7 School Board members on Tuesday delved even further into the topic.
Allison Pope, assistant superintendent of instructional services, presented data regarding the district’s Annual Performance Report from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
One thing she noted is that the district is re-emphasizing teaching Every Day Math in lower grades and algebra in high school to counteract a dip in math scores.
She explained how the district’s APR score is based not just on performance, but on whether there was growth as well from the previous year among all types of students.
Superintendent Brenten Byrd admitted there are areas the staff is working one, but he said it’s frustrating that the district’s APR score is not an accurate reflection of student performance. He urged board members to look “behind the scenes” of the report – not just go by the APR score.
He said he tells DESE, “‘You’re not giving accurate information to the community.”
It was announced that the candidate filing period for three open board seats will begin at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 9, and end at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 30.
The members whose terms are expiring are David Collard, William Roderique and Scott Smith.
In other action:
• Tony Philpot, director of transportation, told the board about the benefits of improvements made in busing kids to school. He said the process of scanning students’ cards as they get on and off the bus helps keep track of students. It’s only used for grades kindergarten through sixth. Scanning also assure parents about their children’s safety, especially for the 900 who have downloaded the app that is connected with the scanning program.
He said another big help has been turn-by-turn software program for bus drivers that improves the efficiency of routes and provides updated student pickup and destination locations.
• For accountability and transparency, Josh Flora, assistant superintendent of business operations, reported that he found no wasteful spending of funds raised by school-sponsored activities.
He suggested refined guidelines for telling the community what the money is being raised for and not fundraising if the activity’s end-of-year balance is enough to cover the next year’s expenses.
He also let the board know that the district is beginning to charge private schools for using district facilities, such as for soccer games.
Tim Workman, still active although retired, gave a report on funds he has raised from advertising at Cardinal Stadium and the Cardinal Dome. The adversing primarily pays for the video scoreboards.
• A bid of $114,750 for Byte Speed to replace a lab of computers was approved.
• A bid of $73,825 from Kansas City Audio-Visual was approved to replace the in-house light fixtures in the Ronald R. Barton Performing Arts Center.
• Byrd received authorization to join other firms with self-funded health insurance plans filing a class-action lawsuit seeking overcharge penalties from a pharmaceutical middleman agency.
• Three letters of retirement, effective after the school year, were accepted (Jan. 1 is now the deadline for retirees to receive compensation for their sick days):
– Melinda Benham is retiring after 23 years with the district, previously as a second-grade teacher and currently as the high school choir director.
– Kim Spink is retiring after 17 years as a special education teacher at the high school.
– 1st Sgt. (retired) Stephanie Attaway is retiring from the JROTC program after 20 years with the district.
• The resignation of Allyson Stolte as a high school health and physical education teacher was accepted, effective Dec. 19.