School board meeting wraps up athletic funding, budget, calendar

In the final meeting for this school year, the Sisters School Board supported an athletics finance plan developed by Dennis Dempsey, Bob Macauley, and the coaching staff. This plan will include all sports. Each participant will pay $100/sport. In addition, each sport will be required to raise roughly $2,000 per year to cover the cost of transportation, facilities and officials. Equipment and supplies costs must come from alternate sources.

By the end of June the coaches will fine-tune the concepts, procedures and budgetary numbers into a formal, detailed process for sports funding.

There was no public comment on the final reading of the 2010-2011 budget which includes cutting six days from next year's calendar and trims 2-1/2 people from the certified roster.

The board once again debated the final school calendar, revealing significant disagreement on the best direction. Allowing for how late it is in the calendar year already, the board agreed to leave the 2010-2011 calendar with the students starting August 30, before Labor Day.

The board further agreed that a three-year calendar would be developed over the summer and adopted within the first week of the 2010-2011 school year. The priorities will be: Classes starting after Labor Day; the school year ending before Sisters Rodeo weekend; maintaining the "traditional" two-week spring break.

The timing of spring break will be pegged to the spring break designated on the published U of O five-year calendar.

Dennis Dempsey, interim superintendent, weighed in in favor of an early start:

"In my experience, the best learning takes place at the beginning of the school year. At the end of the year there are many distractions. With so many kids at school anyway in late August for sports, I've always felt that you might as well start school then."

It was also agreed that when the need arises to cut days from the school calendar due to budget constraints, the first days cut to a minimum will be conference days, then in-service days and only then instructional days.

Allowances will be made to keep two-week blocks of time to maximize curriculum presentation needs; avoid three-day weeks; balance the number of days per quarter; avoid splitting testing days.

Dempsey reviewed the board policy on showing movies in the classroom. He believes that the issues of content, educational value (as opposed to entertainment), and parental consent are handled well. Dempsey recommended that the movie policy become a board operating procedure. It was his opinion that it is up to the principal at each school to communicate, monitor and enforce the board procedure with their teachers.

Dempsey directed the school principals to revise the teacher handbook at each school to better reflect board policy, suggesting that teachers also review movie content in detail, not just ratings (e.g. G, PG, etc.) as the content of the ratings have changed over the years.

Dempsey reported that experts were brought in from High Desert ESD and the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to conduct a formal ELL (English Language Learner) needs

assessment for the district.

Incoming superintendent Jim Golden agreed to take the results of that assessment, and with the help of the ELL experts, develop an ELL program with each principal that is tailored to each school's needs. These programs are to be ready for the fall term.

The board enthusiastically awarded Dennis Dempsey the district's "Best In Sisters" award. In presenting the award, Chis Jones, board chair, said "Dennis walked in a very difficult situation as interim superintendent in midyear, while still maintaining his post as superintendent at High Desert ESD. He was decisive, fair, responsive and knowledgeable. Even though we didn't always agree, he listened well. He brought the ship into port, ending the year well, all things considered."

For his part, Dempsey said, "I've lived here for 18 years. Sisters is part of me. This is a great school district. From my position at ESD I believe this is one of the few districts that has positioned itself well enough to succeed in spite of the horrific budget difficulties it faces."