SA amends evaluation plan

BERNE — Glitches in spring testing scores has led South Adams Schools to amend its employee evaluation plan.
With problems in ISTEP testing affecting half of its students, South Adams School Board approved Tuesday a resolution to change its 2012-13 certificated employee evaluation plan to not take into account the school-wide learning measure grade from the state.
Also on the agenda, the board discussed a proposed fire and safety career and technical education class and accepted a donation of a new wrestling mat.
South Adams evaluations normally take the state grade into account for 5 percent of a teacher’s evaluation and 20 percent of a principal’s evaluation. For the 2012-2013 school year, it will not be a factor.
“I’m convinced this is the best solution under the circumstances,” said superintendent Scott Litwiller.
The resolution will help the school to move on from the debate of how ISTEP scores would be affected by dropped connections in the testing software, leading to delays in students finishing or a need to completely redo portions of the test. A portion of how a school’s state grade is configured comes from this testing.
The evaluations will solely take into account the teacher’s effectiveness rubric and student learning objectives.
“I’m glad we have a solution,” said board member Julie Mansfield.
The board also discussed a fire and safety career and technical education class proposed for 2014.
The fire and safety career class has been talked about since the spring.
Geneva firefighter Art Booth approached South Adams High School about starting a vocational program, which would train students in preparation for such designations as firefighter 1 or 2. The program has a proposal in place for students 17 or older, such as the availability of dual credit at Ivy Tech, industry certification and a base at Geneva Fire Station.
The board agreed the proposal needs more development, such as how many students would need to be registered for the class for it to be fiscally feasible.
Booth will work with principal Trent Lehman to discuss how long the class should be, the student cost of materials and the start-up and maintenance costs for the school.
Litwiller anticipates answers will be found this month, and he’s excited for what the program could become — a place for early training.
“It’s a value to our community because we will have students wanting to join the volunteer fire department,” said Litwiller.
Mansfield echoed those sentiments.
“It’s a great prep for Geneva services and criminal justice,” said Mansfield.
The proposal will go to the Area 18 Board, the board in charge of the career and technical education cooperative encompassing Adams County and four neighboring counties, in late September and need to be approved by the school board before it can become a part of the curriculum.
The last item on the meeting’s agenda left everyone with a bittersweet feeling.
The school board was approached with a donation from The Gold Wrestling Club and sports boosters for a new wrestling mat, worth an estimated $7,000 to $8,000. The wrestling club’s hope was that the donation would be made in honor of Spc. Nick Taylor, an SAHS graduate who was killed in July of 2012 while serving in Afghanistan, with a logo of his name and the date he died on opposite corners of the mat.
While the donation wasn’t contingent on the logo, the club had wanted to commemorate the former wrestler in that way.
The issue of accepting the donation of the mat was never in question by the board, but having a memorial on the mat was. Afraid of approving the memorial, as it would set a standard for future donations that contained memorials, the board went into a lengthy discussion on the pros and cons of the logo.
“My concern is setting a precedent … and it might be wise to take this under advisement,” said board member Ray Gill.
The board’s concern was if such a tragedy were to occur to another wrestler in the future, would they be obligated to add another logo?
After some discussion, and an extra call to athletics director Jason Arnold for details about the mat and the ability of the logo to be added later, the board approved the mat but decided the memorial of Taylor would be better served in another way.
“Hearing this discussion … my recommendation is … to find another way to honor the memory of Nick,” said Litwiller. “We don’t want to forget any of these kids.”
In other business, the board:
•Held a public hearing for its 2014 proposed budget. With no public comment, the budget will go on to adoption on Oct. 8.
•Heard an athletics update from Arnold. Only 31 percent of the current student body is involved in sports, with a loss of 20 students from last year.
“The numbers are a little down from where I’d like to see it,” said Arnold.
Arnold plans to sit down with students that have decided to leave sports programs to try and find problem areas, whether it’s within a specific program or just athletics in general. He hopes to have a report to the board next month.
•Approved the driver’s education program for this year. The price hasn’t changed, with South Adams students paying $300 and non-South Adams students $340. The current fall class has 14 students, and there will be another class in the spring.
•Approved selling a used forklift as surplus equipment. The school will run an advertisement in the paper calling for sealed bids on the forklift.
•Accepted the resignation of Heather Mayer as a special education aide.
•Approved the employment to South Adams schools of: Corey Simon, volunteer girls’ soccer coach, Kelly Weaver, 19-hour first grade Title I aide, Shannon Herman, elementary special education aide, Linney Kinsey, migrant student interventionist aide for grades K-8, Barry Humble, migrant student interventionist aide for grades 6-12, Margie Dobler, high school after-school tutor, Steve Tatman, high school after-school mandatory study table, Michael Baer, high school after-school mandatory study table and Cindy Sprunger, middle school after-school mandatory study table and tutoring.
•Approved family medical leaves for Kathi Drake and Jen White.[[In-content Ad]]