Greater Jasper schools meeting notes for September 16

Jasper — Two major financial items were passed in the Greater Jasper School Board meeting Monday night that clear the way for continued smooth operations of the school system.

The first was the adoption of the 2014 Budget. The budget was introduced in the July meeting and a public hearing was held in August. The board passed the budget Monday night with four out of five board members present – board member Ken Schnaus was not in attendance.

The second major financial item was the Collective Bargaining agreement. The passing of the agreement with the teachers association was announced last night. It represents a big step for Dr. Lorey as another milestone in her leadership of the school system.

“The teachers association has been very good to work with…I appreciate their efforts in working collaboratively,” Greater Jasper superintendent Dr. Tracy Lorey said. “And certainly it is a relief that we would come to an agreement and both the teachers and the board have approved that.”

Dr. Lorey also presented two technology requests to the board.

The first one was for upgrades to the laptops and wireless infrastructure at Jasper High School in the biomed / health sciences program. Lorey told the board that the laptops need to be upgraded to handle the upgraded software for the program. And the wireless system does not allow enough concurrent logons to use the program by all of the students.

The cost for the upgrades through the school contractor AME Group out of Vincennes at a cost of $29,650.00 for 30 laptops, wireless upgrades and labor. The board approved the request.

Then, Dr. Lorey asked the board to give her permission to work with Technology Dynamics of Indianapolis to seek an audit of technology needs that will provide a framework to determine which direction the school system should take.

She said that the previous attempt to come to an agreement with the board was not approved because the request needed to be narrowed in scope. The quotes came in from vendors with a very wide range of costs.

This time, however, the board approved her request to advertise seeking bids for technology for the school system based on the recommendations from Technology Dynamics.

Finally School Curriculum Director Kim Strobel told the board that the student results of the ISTEP testing was released to the school system and parents. She said that those numbers should be released to the public in the October board meeting.

She also reports that the Writers Workshop effort is going well for K-8. The six week plan is being implemented by teachers in teaching grammar in the context of writing. Strobel says that she will check in with the teachers in the middle and high school to gauge the progress in those upper grades.