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Gabe Faimon | Reporter
CARBONDALE—To better enable the Santa Fe Trail (SFT) Board
of Education to address three concurrent challenges – impending
state funding cuts for the current budget, anticipated state funding
cuts for 2009-2010 and subsequent budget years, and continuing decline
in enrollment – extensive public input has been solicited.
Five opportunities for public input have been provided over a span
of six weeks.
The most recent opportunity was during the Feb. 23 board of education
meeting. For more than two hours, the board heard from a cross section
of the community, including parents, faculty members, retired educators
and administrators. Presentation styles included lecture, personal
attack and question and answer dialog.
The board agreed to dedi-cate a sixth meeting to the issue, scheduling
a special meeting for discussion and possible action on district
reorganization for 6 p.m. March 4 at the district’s administrative
center. To ensure the board is able to conduct orderly proceedings,
it stipulated that time for public communication would be limited
to 30 minutes. The board also stipulated proposals for discussion
must be submitted to the district office by 4 p.m. March 2.
The board also considered administrators’ contracts during
Monday’s meeting, unanimously approving board member Brad
Fischer’s motion to offer Scranton, Carbondale and Overbrook
attendance centers’ principals two-year contracts, with the
amount of compensation to be established at a future date. Voting
5-1, the board also adopted Fischer’s motion to offer Superintendent
Steve Pegram a three-year contract with no requirement of in-district
residency. Board member Debbie Prochaska cast the dissenting vote.
In other business, the board:
• met with Gayle Shirazi, regional director of Worldwide International
Student Exchange (WISE), who provided an overview of the organization’s
activities. Shirazi said WISE facilitates placement of international
students with U.S. host families and school systems. She said enrollment
of fulltime international students increases headcount for purposes
of state funding allocation.
• approved a student enrollment fee of $250 for driver training,
due to termination of state funding.
• adopted a resolution authorizing Osage County Emergency
Management to prepare the Osage County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard
Mitigation Plan on behalf of SFT. The resolution stipulates that
the completed plan shall be submitted to SFT for review and approval.
• approved Pegram’s request to solicit bids for establishing
contracts to acquire volleyball uniforms, heating and air conditioning
maintenance, copier maintenance, pest control service and school
photographs.
• received a report from Randy Boudeman, board president,
regarding the recent board meeting of Three Lakes Education Cooperative.
Boudeman became the SFT representative on the Three Lakes board
due to resignation of former SFT board member Carolyn Hug. Boudeman
expressed concern regarding the amount of carryover funds included
in Three Lakes’ budget. |
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