The Perry Community School District Board of Education held their annual and monthly meeting last night.

At the meeting the board heard several reports, starting first Iowa Jobs for America’s Graduates or iJAG teacher Tina Kenney and a recent high school graduate and iJAG student who spoke about how the program made her care more about school and her education.  She has since gone from not caring about homework or having a job, to graduating from high school and now working full time.

Brian WIllham with Shive-Hattery then gave the board an update on the elementary parking and transportation project.  Plans are to change some areas to a single lane of traffic versus two lanes to help with congestion and change the parking lot to make the area safer for students. Overall the project is expected to add around 60 parking spaces with a total cost of between $775,000 to $875,000. The goal is to go out for bid on the project in January to get the best price possible and work on the project next summer.  No formal action was taken on the matter.

Learning Supports Director Kelly Schloss then gave an update on the district’s summer school and tutoring program.  She says enrollment is up this summer and parents are getting behind the service that is being offered.  Schloss says though there are things that need to be worked on, the district is making progress on closing the gap.  Overall, the summer program’s attendance is around 90 percent.

Teaching and Learning Director Kevin Vidergar then gave another update on the Iowa Assessment information.  Overall the district was able to make progress in both reading and math.  Areas that are expiated to need additional School In Need of Assistance help in the future are the high school for math and elementary for reading.  Vidergar says as long as the district continues to show they’re making progress, they likely won’t have to make changes to the overall curriculum.  Math classes will be longer in the elementary school starting with this coming school year.  Next month, Vidergar plans to share additional reading data with the board.

Next, Superintendent Lynn Ubben talked about the adminsitrative retreat schedule for August 8th at the Hotel Pattee and the board approved some minor changes for the elementary, nutrition and transportation handbooks.  Sara Lee was then approved as the district’s bakery vendor, along with Anderson Ericsson as the dairy vendor for 2014-2015.

Several annual appointments were then made including Kent Bultman as board secretary, Dwayne Hochhalter as board treasurer, Drew Bracken from Ahlers and Cooney law firm as the district’s legal council and Raccoon Valley Bank as the primary depository.  Anne Horgen, Gary Cerniakowski and Eric Vaughn will be the district’s equal student abuse by school employee investigators.  Angelica Cardenas-Diaz is the equity, equal opportunity, affirmative action officer, along with the homeless coordinator.  Kevin Vidergar is the section 504 coordinator and Kelly Schloss is the American’s with Disabilities Act coordinator.

Next the boar talked about building a tornado safe room, which would also house a wrestling room, locker rooms and restrooms.  The district applied for Hazard Mitigation Grant funding last year but was not granted the funds.  The board agreed to commit between $5,000 and $10,000 toward the design costs of a multipurpose room, in order to potentially help with a future grant application for the project.  Typically, Federal Emergency Management Agency grants are for up to $1 million, with school districts being responsible for around 15 percent of the total project cost.

The ongoing condensation and leaking roof issue with the high school gym roof was again discussed.  None of the fixes the district has tried up to this point have alleviated the issue that started with the original construction in 2002.  Engineers will be asked to come discuss replacement options with the board at the meeting next month.

Several personnel resignations, hires and transfers were then approved, along with the top five legislative priorities for the Iowa School Board Association’s lobbyists to consider during the upcoming legislative session.  Finally, the board approved board policy revisions in regards to use of motor vehicles, the school calendar, community groups, visitors to district buildings and distribution of materials.

We’ll have more on the meeting and things happening in the district on today’s Let’s Talk Dallas County when we speak with Superintendent Lynn Ubben during the 9am, noon and 5pm hours on AM 1310 KDLS.