The Worth County School Board voted to extend Superintendent Chris Healy’s contract through the 2024-2025 school year at their regular Board of Education Meeting. They also hired three substitute bus drivers and one substitute food service worker.
There will be no school board election in April 2023. There are three open seats, and three incumbents filed. Board members Adam Downing, Michael Mullock, and Amber Monticue all filed for reelection.
The board accepted program evaluations from the Superintendent. The technology program was rated as “Excellent.” Strengths were listed as follows:
–The school continues to maintain their technology hardware by purchasing and replacing Chromebooks each year and rotating the old hardware from vocational grants into the elementary. The district purchased 20 data enabled Chromebooks with funds from the Emergency Connectivity Grant.
–Vocational grant funds helped purchase three Mac desktop computers, a smartboard for the business department, and 8 iPads for the Ag department.
–iPads were purchased for Kindergarten using ECF funds.
–The district was able to upgrade its servers and network last summer.
–Tech personnel provide timely training and response to technology problems.
–The district continues to be 1:1 device to student in grades 3-12 and students can take Chromebooks home.
–The school business department is now able to provide coding courses for students.
–Mobile hotspots are available for students needing Internet access at home in specific situations.
–The school has added three security cameras to make 40 cameras installed with three months of video storage.
–The school has put in a new filter to manage and monitor computer usage.
The concern listed includes the fact that Emergency Connectivity Funds will go away, so Chromebook replacement purchases will need to be budgeted for out of district funds. Recommendations included researching and staying up to date on cybersecurity requirements and recommendations and continuing to maintain funding for technology upgrades.
The school rotates in approximately 75 new Chromebooks annually. This keeps them updated every four years. Data enabled Chromebooks were purchased with ECF funds to aid students who do not have Internet connections at home. Chromebooks are repaired as needed by the Technology Coordinator. If a student damages a Chromebook, they pay for the damages.
New iPads are purchased annually with vocational grants and aged iPads are moved into the elementary. Kindergarten students use them instead of Chromebooks in their classroom.
The Wireless Network is accessible for school devices and the Public Library has a guest network available. WiFi is available throughout the main building, all classrooms, the ag building, the weight room, press box, bus barn, and outside library and circle drive. There are two outdoor access points available for students without home Internet to have a public location to download or upload assignments. Wireless hotspots are available for students without home Internet access. There is also VPN access and cellular hotspots.
Every classroom has a projector or smartboard or equivalent device to provide whole group instruction. Most classrooms have hovercams to aid in instruction. Webcams are offered to staff for distance learning needs. Projectors are gradually being replaced with newer smartboards; there were eight that were purchased from a school surplus auction to replace old projectors. Each classroom has recording devices that teachers use to record themselves for professional development use.
Software is used for parent communication, including school cancellations, attendance calls, negative lunch balances, and other communications. All software has been updated since at least 2020, and most has been updated in 2022.
The basketball and football teams use Hudl for video and for stats. The school uses track software to manage track events. The school has installed streaming cameras so that they can stream home softball, football, and basketball games. A new projector was installed on the gym stage for musical and activity use.
The school regularly updates its website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages.
All teaching staff receives two hours of training on Zoom, Lumen, Google Classroom, Securly Classroom, and one hour of hands on review to aid in distance learning. New staff received additional training.
The school offers the following courses for students. Figures are the number of students completing:
Business Tech (Dual Credit) (4)
Computer Applications (4)
Programming 1 (3)
Programming 2 (2)
Computer Science Discoveries (7)
Graphic Design & Desktop Publishing (2)
Multimedia (7)
Web Design (6)
7th Grade Exploratory (19)
Coding (127)
Elementary Keyboarding (127)
The school currently (2022-23 school year) spends $98,863 for technology.
The Extracurricular Program was rated as Excellent. Strengths include the following:
–88% of junior high and high school students are involved in extracurricular activities.
–Many teams and individuals have achieved high levels of success in academics, athletics, music, and co-curricular activities;
–New bleachers, concrete, and drainage work was done at the softball field. The batting cage was improved. The softball team helped with the projects.
–All coaches and sponsors are MSHSAA approved and are trained in CPR, AED, First Aid, and concussion management.
–The basketball teams have new uniforms.
Concerns listed include:
–Lights and wiring are fragile and will need to be replaced in 1-10 years.
–Visitor seating and lighting are issues for the football field.
–Coordinating practice times and meetings continues to be an issue because of high participation and duplicate members. Basketball practices are conducted at inconvenient times because of only having one gym; for instance, there are times that four teams are trying to have practices on the same day.
–The stage isn’t available for music practices during basketball practice.
–The multipurpose room isn’t adequate space to function for a practice facility.
–Students miss instructional time because of activities.
Recommendations regarding the extracurricular programs:
–Research and reevaluate the needs of athletic facilities.
–Continue to update uniforms per the rotation schedule. Consider moving band uniforms up the list.
–Look for funding opportunities to improve the lighting at the fields.
The following organizations are offered by the school at the high school level. The figures represent the number of students participating:
Student Council (12), FCCLA (19), FBLA (16), NHS (12), FFA (48), Cheerleading (11), Academic Bowl (5), Vocal Contests (n/a), Instrumental Contests (6), Golf (14), Softball (18), Football (23 + 4 NEN), Basketball (26), Track (29), Class Officers (16), Choirs (3), Honor Bands (4), Honor Choirs (n/a), Band (34), Wrestling with Albany (0).
The following organizations are offered at the junior high level. Figures represent the number of students participating:
Student Council (4), Academic Bowl (6), Instrumental Contest (n/a), Choir (3), Class Officers (8), Softball (13), Football (13 + 3 NEN), Basketball (25), Track (33), Band (38), Cheerleading (9).
Students from the following activities have represented Worth County at the state level: FFA, FBLA, FCCLA, Girls Golf, Band, and Track. Students from the following organizations have represented Worth County at the national level: FBLA, FFA.
The school currently (2022-23 school year) spends $81,591 for athletics.
The school received a $2,000 grant from First Interstate Bank to support financial education for its students.
The board approved an agreement with Therapylog for school nursing supervision and support services for the school health employee. Services include consultation on an as-needed basis during school hours along with onboarding, annual, and ongoing training for school staff on an as-needed basis along with the development and review of all individual student health plans. Funds are paid for out of a grant from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which is good for the current school year.
The School Health Employee is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the health office including medication administration, illness/injury assessment and appropriate management with consultation from the Supervising Nurse. The Health Employee performs the high-level nursing duties for students with special health care needs under the supervision of the Supervising Nurse including, but not limited to, diabetes, asthma, seizure disorders, and allergies. The Health Employee will also serve as a liaison between the health office and any School families and performs monthly medication counts.
Art teacher Selina O’Connor reported on the activities of her classes. The 6th grade art class is learning how to add snow to their art. 7th graders are working on still life drawings, shading, and self-portraits. The high school art class is working on facial self-portraits. O’Connor said that many kids didn’t realize how good they were at art until they tried it.
Science teacher Kelley Ross reported that the freshmen were working on pre-chemistry along with learning the periodic table. She got a grant from the Worth County Educational Foundation for books so that students can do book reports. They plan to build and launch rockets, and Dr. Mark Carr will come and help. Eight graders are doing tests on genetics, while the 7th graders are learning about wiring. They took a field trip to the King City Science Center next to the school.
The board does periodic reviews of the Comprehensive School Improvement Plan. Goal 5 is to increase parent/community engagement. This includes documentation of meetings, polls of parents, providing quarterly wellness newsletters, and working to increase hits and followers to the website and the social media accounts. The school conducted a Title 1 meeting as part of the goal of making the school a Title 1 schoolwide building each year. 48 parents and students attended.
The school will complete MAP practice tests by the end of February. They are drawing up a testing schedule, which usually takes place towards the end of April and the beginning of May. The school plans to mark National School Counseling Week, which will take part from February 6th to 10th this year.
Curriculum Director Josh Smith reported on some of the things different classes were learning:
–6th Grade English/Language Arts: Students are reading the book, “Freak the Mighty” and summarizing the main events after each chapter.
–6th Grade Math: Students are learning how to plot a number line and the concept of negative numbers.
–High School American History: Students are comparing the Great Depression of the 1930’s to the present economy.
–High School American Government: Students are learning about the duties of the US Congress.
–8th Grade Social Studies: Students are studying the French & Indian War fought between 1756 to 1763, the leadup to the Revolutionary War, and the perspectives of the French, the British, and the Native Americans. Students are also debating the merits of claiming new land by the Mississippi River.
–High School Music: Students are learning how to refine works with different methods of assessment and adjust based from listening to performances.
Courtwarming will be held February 3rd, and the theme will be, “Generations of Tiger Victories.” FFA Week will be from February 19th to 25th.
Superintendent Chris Healy reported that there were 42 elementary subs hired, 7 paraprofessional subs hired, 80 high school subs hired, and 4 high school paraprofessional subs hired for the period from August to December 2022. Total sub expenses were $9,254 for the current school year compared to $7,913 to last year.
Staffing needs were discussed for the upcoming school year. Currently, the district needs a 7-12 special education teacher and a part-time teacher, part-time activities director.
School days were tentatively set for next year. The first day of school next year is tentatively set for August 22nd. The last day is tentatively set for May 16th, with 167 student days totaling 1,068 hours of instruction. The state minimum is 1,044. This means that the school can call off three days of school without having to make up missed days of instruction.
The board voted to increase the pay scale for non-certified staff to bring their minimum pay up to $12 per hour. This puts their pay in line with the new state minimum wage of $12 per hour, which was passed by voters.
The board voted unanimously to pass a resolution opposing open enrollment. While Iowa has open enrollment, their schools are funded differently than Missouri’s are. North Nodaway and Northeast Nodaway have also passed resolutions opposing open enrollment.
