Board of School Trustees Meeting

Madison King, Mrs. Maria Bond's student intern, was unable to attend.  Dr. Parker shared the following Good News in her place:

1.  Miss Tessa Freeman was one of two seniors in Hancock County to win the Lilly Endowment Scholarship.

2.  MVMS 8th Grade Treble Choir made it to the top five choirs for the B105.7 Christmas Choir Competition.

3.  For the first time is school history, the MVHS Football Team won regionals and advanced to semi-state.

4.  MVMS Mr. Douglass' Project Lead the Way class designed and built toys for people with cerebral palsy.

5.  Mt. Vernon had 16 students and two teachers from Taiwan visit Mt. Vernon Schools for a week.  Mt. Vernon will be sending several students to visit them in Taipei next summer.

6.  Mt. Vernon Education Foundation distributed over $20,000 in grants at all five schools.

Mrs. Alissa Lockwood, Principal at Mt. Comfort Elementary School, gave a presentation spotlighting her school.  She began by saying it has been an exciting semester and thanked Dr. Parker and board members for their support and allowing her to be principal at Mt. Comfort.  Over the summer, curriculum collaborator teams came together and identified essential learnings that they want all students to learn.  They realized they can't teach everything so picked what is most important with the believe that all students can learn at high levels and focus on learning and not just teaching.  Mrs. Lockwood showed an example of an Instructional Planning Sheet (IPS) they are using.  This IPS showed 1st grade Math, Subtraction within 20.  Pre-assessment proficiency showed 51% of students were proficient.  That only went up to 57% proficiency after the post unit test.  Teachers regrouped to figure out what they had missed and why it only went up 6%.  After the post unit re-teach, the percentage went up to 78%.  Further data showed at the end of the unit, 43 students were not proficient and after re-teaching, that number went down to 22.  They will circle back with those 22 students to make sure they are proficient by the end of the school year. Teachers talked about and shared instructional practices that work and what to avoid next year when teaching this unit again.  The third grades did a unit on measuring length to a quarter inch and will finish that unit soon.  Pre-assessment proficiency was 2% and after the post unit, proficiency went up to 67%.  Mrs. Lockwood stated it will be exciting to see what percent  they end up at after the post unit re-teach.  Kindergartners did a unit on identifying and name all uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet. Pre-assessment proficiency was 50% and after the post unit test, went up to 71%.  After the post unit re-teach, that percentage went up to 90%.  Mrs. Lockwood ended by saying she is very excited for the next semester and very proud of the Mt. Comfort teachers who are learning by doing.

Dr. Parker added, that if we truly believe all students deserve to learn at high levels and after post post we have not done that yet, we can identify exactly which students need extra help and move them into a Tier 2 Intervention.

Dr. Parker gave a report on Teacher Evaluations.  For the  2017-18 school year, 67 teachers were rated Highly Effective; 165 Effective; 5 Improvement Needed; and 0 Ineffective.  For the 2018-19 school year, 60 teachers were rated Highly Effective; 166 Effective; 2 Improvement Needed and 0 Ineffective.   A couple of things Dr. Parker pointed out, the 5 Improvement Needed in 2017-18 are not Improvement needed now, and the 2 for the 2018-19 school year, are headed in the right direction as well.  He also noted that the teacher pool did not decrease from 2017-18 to 2018-19, but as some teachers come and go during the school year, we are unable to capture some teachers in an evaluation, so the numbers are not going to be perfect.   He reminded everyone that the metrics had previously been changed for the next evaluation, 20% school letter grade and 80% rubric, making it much simplified. The new system will start for the 2019-2020 evaluations.  A teacher committee has been working on lining things up and clarifying things in the rubric to advance to administrators, making sure the system is clear for everyone and everyone is comfortable with the entire evaluation process.   

Mr. McCarty asked if teachers have been communicated with on their evaluations. Dr. Parker stated yes.  

Mr. Elkins presented two resolutions that are tied together.  Resolution 2019-18 authorizes temporary loan from the Pension Debt Fund to the Education Fund.  Resolution 2019-19 transfers funds from the Education Fund to the Pension Debt Fund 2019.  He stated that the Pension Debt Fund is a levied fund, so he wanted to have a record of any action taken for accounting purposes.  This is no new revenue, he just wants to clean it up so it can be shown that all receipts and expenditures remain in the correct funds.  

Mrs. Freeman made a motion to approve the two resolutions (2019-18 and 2019-19) as presented.  Mr. May seconded.  Mr. May wanted to clarify that the resolutions allowed a loan from the Pension Debt Fund to the Education Fund and then a transfer back from the Education Fund to the Pension Debt Fund.  Mr. Elkins stated, yes, this is all retroactive and related to retiree insurance and this was the closest language to what needed to be done.

The motion carried 5-0.