The Greene County School Board met last night.
The Board approved four early graduation requests, denied allowing an open enrolled student who attends Glidden-Ralston be allowed to be picked up in Scranton because it violated the district’s two mile transportation policy and approved two fundraising requests for the fine arts dessert concert in the winter and Ram cards for the baseball team.
The Board also set November 12th’s meeting for a public hearing for the sale of its lots at Wilcoxway and Adams Street.
At the September meeting, the Board set a minimum of six students to be enrolled in the student construction class for it to be offered starting the second trimester in November and there are seven students who have signed up to take the class.
Superintendent Tim Christensen said the students will not get to build an entire house, but they get to do other smaller projects for the rest of the school year.
“Some of the projects that they’re looking at, we did receive the Monsanto grant to put up a greenhouse. So hopefully have the kids assist with that, doing some concrete work and also building the greenhouse. We’ve made some arrangements to work with Habitat for Humanity, they’re remodeling a house in Jefferson so doing some work with that.”
During the administration reports, elementary principal Scott Johnson reported that their current STAR Assessment showed third graders tested at 79% for reading and 95% for math, second graders tested at 83% for reading and 84% for math and first graders were at 84% in reading and 84% in math. If the average is above 80%, then scores are good. They’re next STAR Assessment will be before winter break.
High school principal Brian Phillips said they have earned the Safe School Certification from their work to address bullying.
The Board also discussed options for the baseball infield to drain better. The basic option was for $30,000 and it basically was a quick way to fix it for a short-term solution. The other two options required digging down eight-inches and also installing drainage tile and adding a proper irrigation system. The most expensive option was for $130,000. The Board did not take action on the topic.
The Board discussed the possibility of utilizing the Grand Junction softball field as their main competition field in the future, but again, the Board did not act on the topic.
Finally, during the Superintendent’s report, Christensen noted that the Certified Enrollment for the 2014-15 school year was down 19.13 students from last year with a total of 1,281.37 resident students in the district for K-12.
To hear more of our discussion with Christensen, tune into today’s Let’s Talk Greene County program that airs on KGRA during the 9am, noon and 5pm hours.