Board hears report on district revenues, improvement ratings

The Bloomfield School Board of Directors was told that the district met or exceeded all the required standards of the Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP) and then heard from Superintendent Nicholas Thiele about ways to improve revenue for the 2008-09 school year. The board met in regular session Monday night with all board members present.

Thiele told the board that the elementary school met all the recommended required standards and the middle school also met the requirements including the offering of four exploratory classes. The high school met the minimum requirements, although the minimum is six hours of language arts with 10 hours as "desirable" and the district offers only six.

Theile said he would like to see the district not just meet the minimum requirements, but move towards the higher standards because they will continue to be increased by the state. He said each district must have a minimum offering of at least 40.5 units of credit, while the desirable level is 69 units of credit. Bloomfield currently offers 50 units of credit, or perhaps 51 depending how the units are calculated.

Thiele told the board that the district would like to move toward meeting the desirable levels, but that was contingent on budget constraints. He said it was good that Bloomfield met the minimum standards, but that the board should be looking at ways to improve and still stay within the budget.

A report was also given on recommended class sizes and how the district fared in these areas. The minimum class size for grades K-2 is 25, with 20 students per class as desirable. Bloomfield averages 19.55 per class. The minimum size for grades 3-4 in 27 with a desirable of 22 and Bloomfield has 21 per class. The minimum for grades 5-6 is 30 with a desirable size of 25, and Bloomfield has a class size of 18.66 in the fifth grade and 20.18 in the sixth grade. Class sizes in grades 7-12 are set at 33 as a minimum and 28 for a desirable size, and Bloomfield has a class size of 15.78.

Thiele said the district would like to "keep our classes as small as possible."

Board member Bill Robison inquired about how these standards relate to other school evaluations, such as the MAP testing. He also asked, "Are we evaluated every year?"

Thiele said the district was formally evaluated every five years, but that district officials had to submit information "every two months." He went on to say that the district is held accountable on a yearly basis.

"Evaluations help us remedy any problems before they become too serious," Thiele said.

He said while the various programs are different, they are all designed to improve education for students in districts across the state. He said the Comprehensive School Improvement Program and others all are aimed at providing the best possible education for students, and the district could use the programs to make improvements in specific areas where needed.

High School Principal Eric Boles said a program aimed at identifying students in danger of not graduating allowed the district to "take action now and keep the students from dropping out." He also said programs were implemented to "improve their test scores." He said another program implemented by the district "cut the number of students going to summer school in half."

Thiele told the board, "the progress reports help the district keep students from getting behind."

The board then turned their attention to local revenues.

Thiele said he wanted to have the board take a closer look at the district budget and this month he wanted to go into more depth on district revenues. Each month the board will be taking a closer look at one aspect of the budget, Theile said.

The 2008-09 budget shows anticipated revenues of $1,936,818, which is up from last year's revenues of $1,861,134. Thiele noted that revenues had gone up the last three years, but also noted that expenditures were also rising.

The following sources of revenue were given: $966,507 from local property taxes, $121,482 for the collection of delinquent property taxes, $709,860 from the School District Tax Fund (Proposition C, from the state of Missouri), $294 from the financial institution tax, $3,672 from the M & M surtax, $5,490 from earnings on investments, $82,445 from food service sales to students, $10,081 from food service sales to adults, $604 from food service, non-program, and $36,383 from other local revenue. Another $312,870 goes into a student activity account, but Thiele said that it was an "in and out" account because all the various student groups raise money for their activities, and then take the money out to pay for them.

Thiele said one area where revenues can be increased is from the state, Prop C, funding. The Bloomfield district receives $874 per student from this source based on average daily attendance (ADA). The higher the average daily attendance, the more money the district gets. He said that is why attendance policies have become more stringent.

Boles said, "We need students here, not just for funding, but because they won't learn if they're not here."

Thiele told the board he wanted them to think about ways to improve revenues and look over the areas where improvements could be made.

The board unanimously approved allowing Thiele to pay the Internal Revenue Service $24,466 for payroll taxes that were mistakenly not paid in the third quarter of 2007. Thiele said payroll taxes were wired by the bank and that apparently the district had missed payment and "the money didn't get to the federal government."

He said the district owed almost $27,000 in back payroll taxes, late fees and fines, but the auditors believed they could work something out if the district would pay the $24,466. He said the district currently pays the payroll taxes themselves and new audit procedures are in place to make sure something like that doesn't happen again.

The board also approved reimbursing an individual for fingerprinting, at the request of Thiele.

Bloomfield Elementary Principal Kelly Renfroe told the board that the school year was "great so far," and that 92 students had qualified to take a MAP trip to the Memphis Zoo this semester. The qualification is based on test scores on the MAP testing.

Thiele told the board that the district has to cancel the girls middle school basketball season because only four players came out. He said all four were from the eighth grade, none from the seventh.

Board member Don Lafferty said, "One other girl quit before we cancelled the season."

After an executive session, the board returned and voted to hire Keri Lampher as an assistant Beta Club sponsor at the middle school and approved a list of substitute teachers for the current school year. The board decided not to provide insurance for their part-time staff. A request had been made to the board to take such action.