The Haines Borough school board Tuesday balked at a request by superintendent Ginger Jewell to advertise three, new full-time positions with the district. Members said they wanted to see the costs of the jobs included in budget figures they were to review for the first time at a workshop March 5.
The board also:
· gave partial support to requests for help from Friends of Mosquito Lake School and Community Center;
· approved up to $1,750 to attend a school technology conference sponsored by Apple; and,
· approved about $80,000 for school equipment including musical instruments and weight room equipment.
The three jobs include an expanded special education director position, a math and science teacher and “coach” position in lower grades, and a job aimed at integrating new technologies into classroom instruction.
Some school board members expressed support for the positions, but said advertising the jobs should wait until budget numbers are known.
“They all sound wonderful, really. We’re so behind in science and math. Statewide scores are low, but ours are not very good,” said board member Lisa Schwartz. Jewell has characterized the proposed coach job as similar to one that recently helped boost elementary reading scores.
But Schwartz said those decisions needed to be part of a transparent budget process.
“Last year we were told we needed to cut our budget $500,000 and then we had different piles of money show up… I think it’s putting the cart before the horse. We don’t know if we can afford these positions,” Schwartz said.
Member Brian Clay estimated the positions would cost $180,000 or more. “That’s a lot of money. We have open positions that haven’t been filled.”
The special education director job would be designated as a “student support” position, and include responsibility for a student behavior program and student assessment programs, responsibilities formerly managed by the school counselor and other positions.
Responsibility for directing special education shifted to Jewell this year.
“The job is easily half time and should be filled by a person with significant special education experience,” Jewell said in an email this week. “I spend about two hours a day dealing with SPED specific tasks. It is not enough. Federal law surrounding special education demands much time and paperwork.”
Jewell said the technology position would “work directly with administrators and teachers to effectively integrate digital tools into classroom instruction, focusing on planning, implementation, and follow-up training using the latest instructional digital tools (hardware and software) that maximize student learning across all content areas.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, the board approved about $1,750 in funding for a trip for district leaders to hear an “executive briefing” on an Apple-based technology program for schools. The district has embarked on a program called “Engaging the Future” that will beef up technology in the schools, including acquiring laptops for middle school students and iPads for students in grades K-3.
As outlined at a recent meeting, the technology component of the program would cost about $100,000.
School board president Anne Marie Palmieri said she’s been encouraged by information about the technology program, citing as an example a program where students created a computer-based layout of what they learned about worms.
“The kids researched and wrote text and drew pictures and put it all together in a digital layout… It was amazing. Kids learned more and were more excited about what they learned than if they were reading it in someone else’s textbook and taking a test on it,” Palmieri said.
The board agreed to collaborate with Friends of Mosquito Lake School and Community Center to do “long-range planning and problem-solving” and appointed member Brian Clay to serve as a board liaison to the group.
The school board denied a request by the group to identify for the Haines Borough a specific use the district might have for the unused school building. After unsuccessfully trying to identify a district use, board member Sara Chapell said the district would instead write a general letter of support.
(The Friends group recently gave up efforts to open the facility as a school next year, and is developing a plan for its use.)
The $80,000 in equipment spending includes $31,700 for weight room equipment, $40,000 for musical instruments including a new, upright piano, $2,539 for playground fencing, and $6,076 for cameras and lighting.
The board spent about the same amount in the fall on equipment, including a new gym scoreboard, music room lighting, elementary gym stage improvements, cafeteria storage, and intercom improvements.
The district holds a $350,000 balance in its equipment fund, district bookkeeper Judy Erekson said.