The Perry Community School District Board of Education held their monthly meeting last night.

At the meeting the board approved election results from the September school board election, adding Kyle Baxter and Marjean Gries to the board of education.  During the annual organizational meeting, Dan Wilhelmi was elected as President of the board and Jim Lutmer was selected as Vice President for the upcoming year.  The board also voted to keep the same date, time and location for their regular meetings of 6:30pm the second Monday of the month in the Brady Library at Perry High School. New director Baxter was chosen to serve as the Iowa Association of School Board delegate and legislative representative and Marjean Gries will serve as the district’s representative on the Dallas County Conference Board

Next the board heard from instructor Carla Wood who presented about her recent experience in the Library of Congress’s summer institute.  Wood said she learned about the importance of using primary sources in teaching and how to implement that with the Iowa Core Curriculum.

Teaching and Learning Director Kevin Videgar then presented an update on what is being done at all grade levels in terms of professional development.  He said the Talented and Gifted program is being evaluated this year so that it can be updated and improved in the future.

Superintendent Lynn Ubben said the middle school gym renovation project continues to move forward and bleachers will be installed in the next few days.  She says school enrollment appears to be down around 41 students this year over last year, it will be officially certified next week.

The Perry Middle School 8th grade band trip to Minneapolis in the spring was then approved by the board, along with game official contracts and allowing the athletic director to use the board president’s electronic signature to enter in said contracts.

Next Kelly Schloss presented the Title 1 update to the board.  She outlined the program’s budget and talked about future plans for the current and upcoming years.  The Title 1 application for the 2013-2014 school year was then approved by the board.

Participation in the Iowa Drug and Alcohol Testing program, which randomly tests bus drivers for drug and alcohol use, was then approved, along with the authorization of signers for the district’s Raccoon Valley Bank accounts and standard revisions to board policies.

Personnel changes were then approved including some changes in athletic coaches and extra curricular program sponsors and elementary school counselor Andrea Brandner spoke to the board about hoping to hire an intern through the Americorp program to help with the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.  The cost to the district would be around $14,000, with Americorp paying for the other half of the intern cost.  The board gave Brandner permission to move forward with the application, in hope that an intern will start in the district on October 31st.

We’ll have more on these and other happenings in the Perry School District on today’s Let’s Talk Dallas County with Superintendent Lynn Ubben, so tune into AM 1310 KDLS during the 9am, noon and 5pm hours.