Board reviews hail damage, test scores
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Storm damage, insurance claims, ISASP test results, and personnel topped the agenda of the regular meeting of the Mount Ayr Community School board of education on Monday, May 13.
Storm Damage
The board learned they will have separate insurance deductibles for each building to repair hail damage to roofs. One building has a $25,000 deductible, and the other building has a $15,000 deductible because of the wind and hail damage.
“So you have to pay a deductible on both of those,” asked board member Craig Winemiller, “I just lost my entire farm, and I only had to pay one deductible on everything.”
EMC is the main school insurance carrier across Iowa, and the deducibles are different due to the wind and hail coverage. Next year, insurance deductibles are expected to change to 1% of the building value, and everything the school owns, which would increase deductibles even more.
“I disagree with them,” stated Craig Winemiller, “I can’t believe it’s two deductibles. I just don’t understand that.”
“I assume it’s like that for all schools,” stated board director P.J. West, “Gorilla hail, I didn’t even know that existed.”
Board member Russell Schuitema asked what the buildings are valued at.
Stephanie Newton, board secretary, shared the high school is valued at roughly $40 MIL and the elementary is valued at approximately $15 MIL.
Next year, at 1%, the wind and hail deductible could be as high as $550,000 for both buildings, not including other property.
“Is there anything roof wise that can reduce the amount of damage,” asked Schuitema, “that we could do this time?”
“We are going to put Dens decking down,” said superintendent Jason Shaffer, “it was not down on a lot of the parts that were really bad.”
ISASP Test Results
Elementary principal Chris Elwood, reviewed ISASP proficiency results for 3rd through 6th grade students, and how they compared to the 2023 state average (see table 1).
He explained that English Language Arts (ELA) scores are averaged across two parts; a reading score, and a separate writing score.
While third grade showed lower than average ELA and math proficiency scores two years in a row, Elwood noted some changes are coming next year, as they continue to work on proficiency to get above the state level average.
Fourth grade ELA proficiency was also noted to be lower than the state average, but they did see overall growth of 21% over last year’s scores. Math proficiency was nearly equal to the state average.
Fifth and sixth grade ELA, math, and science proficiency was above state averages and demonstrated strong average student growth overall.
Secondary principal Josh Vanderflught presented the middle school and high school 2024 ISASP results, noting 96 kids met both their expected growth goals in both math and ELA this spring.
Vanderflught noted high school science scores are low, and he recognizes they have some work to do to strengthen their standards, including earth science. He is looking forward to having two new science teachers for the 24-25 school year, and is confident they have a good plan going forward.
Most impressive, ELA proficiency remains strong.
“ELA is probably our bright spot,” stated Vanderflught, “we’re at 85% percent proficient overall in this building [MS/HS].”
He went on to say that any growth percentage at all was measured by grade level. This showed 90% of juniors grew from last year’s score, 100% of the tenth grade class had growth over last year, 75% of freshmen showed growth, while 90% of 8th grade and 97% of 7th graders showed growth over the prior year.
“Our growth was pretty good,” said Vanderflught.
While a little dip in math scores was noted this school year, overall, 80% percent of 7-11th grade students were proficient in 2024.
“With math, it builds so much, we’ve got to do a good job of assessing periodically,” stated Vanderflught, “and if they don’t get it, we’ve got to intervene and make sure they get it.”
Personnel
The board reluctantly approved resignations from current band instructor Aaron Comer, who has accepted a position at Pleasantville Community School District, and librarian Julie Rivera, who has accepted a position at the AEA.
Five coaches were also approved by the board:
• Debra Reed as head bowling coach for both the boys and girls,
• Alissa Weinkoetz as head volleyball coach,
• Thad Streit as a middle school baseball coach,
• Isaac Vos as an e-sports coach,
• Daniel Showalter as head middle school track coach
Other Regular Business
The board of directors also unanimously approved the following items during their regular session:
• Resolution ordering election on the question of continuing to levy a voter approved physical plant and equipment property tax, which would extend the current tax levy, without raising taxes;
• Renewing the current driver’s education contract;
• Class of 2024 graduates pending completion of requirements;
• Set the graduation date for the next school year on May 18, 2025;
• Sharing agreements with Diagonal for human resources, transportation, special education, and curriculum director;
• Green Hills AEA sharing contracts for a shared social worker two days a week in the amount of $20,000;
• Reviewed three fence bids and selected the low bid from American Fence Co. in the amount of $33,601 for 850 feet of black vinyl fence and two gates along the east side of the high school parking lot;
• A late early retirement request from Betsy Budach, as circumstances changed with the ending of the TLC program;
• Albrieo agreement to maintain the HVAC system at a cost of $41,832;
• Proceeding with roof repairs per the AEA emergency waiver;
• Three fundraiser requests.
Closed Sessions
The regular meeting ended with the board moving into closed session to evaluate the professional competency for two separate individuals whose performance is being considered to prevent needless and irreparable injury to the individuals’s reputation, in accordance with Iowa Code Section 21.5(l)(i)
