Malta Bend BOE hears about 'school improvement,' approves salary increases

At their meeting Wednesday evening, Oct. 7, Malta Bend Board of Education members learned that the school has been designated in need of "school improvement" under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The act measures school performance by annual test results, in Missouri by the Missouri Assessment Program or MAP tests. Benchmark test scores in NCLB are raised every year, and though Malta Bend students' scores did go up last year, they failed to meet the higher standard, Superintendent Melissa Vesser said.

"We know that 99 percent of our kids made great improvement in their personal growth," Vesser said, noting the school tracks each individual student's performance.

Vesser told the board that the school will receive $40,000 in federal funding, which is supposed to help improve teaching methods, which will hopefully get students to perform high enough on subsequent tests to remove the "improvement" designation.

School administrators will conduct a needs assessment and submit a budget to education officials to determine how to spend the money. The funds will likely be used for professional development for teachers and to purchase materials for classrooms, Vesser said.

This is the first year Malta Bend School has been in the "school improvement" category of NCLB.

In other financial-related business, the board approved the school's annual audit report. The highlights of the report, President Art Madden said, were no noted deficiencies in internal control, no noncompliance with government standards. Auditors wrote that the financial statements "present fairly."

"In other words," Madden said, "it's a clean audit."

Although the school's salary schedule has been frozen because of budget concerns, the board moved to increase salaries for three teachers who completed eight hours of graduate-level coursework.

Some board members were concerned about finding the extra money, and Vesser said next year's budget is still uncertain.

"I'd like to give it to them if we can," she said. But, she added, "We've got some major money crunching to do."

The teachers are Joleen Stubblefield, Amiee Feagan and Helen Boedecker, and the annual salary increases total $2,400.

Another teacher, Zach Harvey, was given an annual stipend of $2,400 at the meeting. Harvey has been doing computer maintenance and other technical work at the school, averaging about 20 hours per month.

"He definitely is trying to save us money on the other end," Vesser said, because paying for outside computer assistance is costly.

In his report, Principal Roger Feagan said school attendance is up again, at 94.8 percent overall, after the school was closed in early September because of widespread display of flu-like symptoms, which was never confirmed as the H1N1 virus. Broken down by grade levels, attendance for elementary students is 96 percent and high school is 93.5 percent.

Feagan spoke about the Reading First program, begun last year in the elementary school. Students showed much progress at the end of last school year and have continued to do well, Feagan said.

"The teachers just went to town and worked super hard to get them where they are now," he said. "We were very thrilled with that."

Feagan also mentioned both he and teachers have noticed that high school students are more invested in school than previously, and discipline problems are down.

"Something's going on that's good," he said.

In other business, board members approved a new policy for school fundraisers. Beginning next year, all fundraisers for the entire school year will be approved at one time, after being placed on a fundraising calendar to avoid overlap.

"That would eliminate the droves of these things that come in," Vesser said, meaning that, in the future, the board will not be asked to approve fundraisers at every meeting.

The board also approved checklists for each extracurricular activity sponsor, including positions like coaches and class sponsors. Items on the checklist must be completed in order for the sponsors to receive their stipends.

Board members voted to change regular meeting dates to the second Wednesday, instead of the second Thursday, of every month.

Board members Jackie Plattner, Doreena Forqueran, Scott Moore, Susan Jansen, Casey Klein and board were also present at the meeting.

A budget committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 5, at 5:30 p.m. The board's next regularly scheduled meeting is Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m.

Contact Sydney Stonner at marshallbusiness@socket.net