The Feb. 10 Spring Hill Board of Education opened with the roll call and the pledge of allegiance. While the entire board was technically in attendance Board President, Doug Updike, was on the phone for the entirety of the meeting. 

Recognitions

They then had the school principals present recognize. Support Staff such as School counselors, Kitchen staff and Instructional coaches were recognized for the great work they do with both students and teachers. Marc Williams, High School principal, recognized the Culinary Team’s bronze metal at their recent competition. Jason Winbolt, Ali Seeling and Dr. Wayne Burke, were all recognized by the Kansas Association of School Boards for the training they have gone to. Stephanie Barnhill also came to thank the board for their support as the early childhood center open in Jan. They then Approved the Consent Agenda and moved on to Discussion Items that were not voted on that night.

Discussion Items

District Calendar

They started by discussing the changes to the District Calendar for the 2020-2021 meeting. When they looked into the graduation date for the Insight school the district realized that there were some missing days that lead to an imbalance of days between first and second semester to rectify this they changed the start and end dates, but left many of the breaks alone. So that the Insight school could work to plan for next years graduation they moved to make this an action item that night and then quickly approved the new Calendar.

Bond Construction Review

Phil Elliot, technology director, then presented the Bond Construction Review in place of Tim Meek. Meek was out due to a recent surgery. The district is hoping to close our all financials regarding the 2016 bond very soon. Everything is moving smoothly for the 2018 bond; the educational support building is framed and the walling is going up, Dayton Creek has received its building permit and the dirt work is beginning, They are hoping to close on a property for the third middle school, that has yet to be named, on May 29, 2020. 

Phone and Network Equipment at education support building

Elliot also discussed the Education Support building’s Phone and Network Equipment. They are adding an Intercom system that is the same as the woodland Spring building that they got at a competitive price. 

New High School Courses

Williams then presented the new courses that the High School would like to provide for their students. Among them was a change to English 4 to make a semester course allowing students to take a english elective, change to several advanced Math courses to be in accordance with JCCC’s ACT score. They are hoping to add a variety of CTE courses, another english elective, literature of war, and Astronomy and Meteorology. 

Policy Recommendations

Burke then presented the policy changes that will be added to the district’s policies should the board members approve them. The first was to allow the school district to not have to send out a bid to the bank should they have extra money they would like to collect interest on. This allows them to look into the institution instead of simply taking the bank with the largest interest. There were also edits to the policy surrounding tobacco use on school property. It was widely agreed upon that it was mostly the state catching up to what the district already had in place. They added definitions for anything that was inhaled not just things containing nicotine and also defined what school property was. The board moved to update the policies and was approved. 

Strategic Plans

Brad Willson, Assistant Superintendent, shared the changes the districts strategic plan that the board discussed at the retreat last month. They changed the verbiage on their social and emotional plan to encourage students and the district to work with parents to help the student. They also changed the verbiage under the goal to Academic Excellence mostly to make it sound better. Finally they are hoping to have each building create yearly goals and make processes for this. The board agreed that they didn’t need to vote on this and just continue to let them continue working. 

Student Representation

Finally they continued their discussion of having a student representative on the board headed by Nels Anderson, board member, and Brent Hoffman, board member. They are going to continue to build the idea and the requirements for students they decided that they would go on to build the idea and even get input from juniors during the American History class.