BY ALICIA FEYERHERM
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After the recent passing of the USD 489 School bond, Superintendent Ron Wilson recognized the Vote Yes Committee at the May 16 Board of Education meeting.
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\u201cWhat we accomplished can never be understated,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cWe accomplished something really, really amazing with this bond issue.\u201d
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Vote Yes Committee Chairman David Clingan thanked the board for their unanimous support of the bond.
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\u201cWhen you voted unanimously for this to go to ballot you made a very large and public statement of support and I appreciate every one of you when you did that,\u201d Clingan said.
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The City Commission also unanimously voted to put the sales tax provision on the ballot.
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\u201cWe are in a community of great people and I\u2019m really just honored to be with these people,\u201d Clingan said.
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District administrators will start meeting with the contractors for the bond starting next week. The next step will be a site survey of the area, looking at the slope of the land and seeing where utilities will be laid out.
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\u201cThis is the first step of a million steps but we have to do that first,\u201d Wilson said.
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Kansas Association of School Boards member Gary Sechrist provided the board with feedback based on the self-evaluation completed last fall.
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Questions on the evaluation were categorized by board member action, board meeting practices, vision and planning, policy, financial planning and board superintendent relations with respondents ranking the statements on a scale from one to four. Respondents also ranked how important they felt each question was.
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Sechrist then averaged the scores listed below.
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Board Member Actions: 2.52
Importance: 3.81
Board Meeting Practices: 3.4
Importance: 3.78
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Vision and Planning: 3.17
Importance: 3.6
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Policy: 3.08
Importance: 3.74
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Financial Planning: 3.34
Importance: 3.81<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Board and Superintendent Relations: 2.84
Importance: 3.88<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The individual question with the biggest gap between the current practice and the importance was \u201cDuring the decision-making process, board members think independently, but once the decision is made, all board members respect the decision and the board speaks with one voice.\u201d
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The current practice was a 2.1 but the importance ranked a 4.
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Sechrist thanked the board for taking the time to complete the evaluation.
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\u201cIt is always great information when you\u2019re trying to do the great things that you\u2019re trying to do for kids,\u201d Sechrist said.
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Student Fees were approved for the next school year.
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\u201cPart of what we have to do at these chairs is to not look at it as how we would like it as a parent but how we have to manage a budget for this budget,\u201d Board President Tammy Wellbrock said.
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Board member Craig Pallister noted in prior years the increase in fees was not the fault of the board.
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\u201cOur prior governors and legislators cut education to the point where we had to go back to our local people to raise fees,\u201d Pallister said.
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Pallister worries that depending on the upcoming elections, we could be \u201cback in the same boat.\u201d
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However, for the next school year, parents will see a decrease in fees. At the middle and high school level, the Technology Repair Fee was reduced along with the Student ID Fee and Driver\u2019s Education costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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