The Greene County School Board of Directors met last night in regular session.

During the open forum, Dave Dideriksen asked the Board for support for an anti-bullying program called Bully Project In Greene County and trying to establish Iowa as part of the National Bully Project.  He also invited everyone to their public meeting at the Jefferson Elks Lodge on Saturday, February 21st.

Under old business, the Board set February 18th’s meeting for a public hearing about transferring the Rippey School property to the City of Rippey.  The Board also approved the second reading of revised board policies for activity eligibility, grievance procedure and employee voluntary retirement.

Other items the Board approved were a school bus bid from Bluebird for $103,472 for an 84-passenger bus, the District Developed Service Delivery Plan that combined Jefferson-Scranton and East Greene’s plans together for a Greene County School District plan and board policies 606-701.3.

Superintendent Tim Christensen presented the 2015-16 school calendar.  He proposed the calendar to staff and the majority of the comments were positive.  One change that was recommended was pushing back spring break a week to coincide with Iowa State University and University of Iowa’s spring break.  Currently, spring break is scheduled for March 21-25.  If an early start waiver is not approved, then school would start August 31st.

State Representative Chip Baltimore spoke to the Board about educational topics at the state legislature.  He addressed supplemental state aid issue.  He said the last thing that he wants the state government to do is set up school districts to fail and that they don’t know what the state’s revenue is going to be until they see the final report from the Estimate Revenue Conference in March, which is after the deadline of when school districts are suppose to submit their budgets which is in February.  He admitted that they are a year behind their own rules of setting the percentage for supplemental aid.  He pointed out that districts are wanting 6% and the personal income growth last year was only at 3.2%.

Another area that Baltimore discussed was the early start waivers.  He said when the governor revealed his plan to not automatically allow early start waivers, that he was surprised and had no warning about that before it happened.  He reported that there is going to be a bill that fights what the governor wants and give local control back to the school districts to decide when to start school.  However, he also said that even when school districts start school before Labor Day weekend, that they also dismiss early due to heat, so he could see starting the school year when the law says to.

Finally, the Board looked at the Department of Education’s site visit report from November.  Some of the non-compliance issues include having a process in place to identify kindergarten through second graders for the Talented-and-Gifted program and make sure that certain classes address gender balancing.  Another issue was not capturing 60-hours of instruction per week, so there will be about 5-10 minutes added on to the school day starting next school year.  The district also needs to offer two health classes for high school students.

There were equity non-compliance issues that the D.E. found as well.  Most of it had to deal with proper handicap signage and accessibility to the administration and high school buildings.  The administration building will also need to add a van handicapped accessibility parking space and the front entrance will need to be a push button automatic door opener installed.