The INDEPENDENT, December 13, 2007
Page 11
Banks School Board told students liked going to Camp Westwind
Three sixth-grade students
from Banks Elementary School
attended the Banks District
School Board of Directors’
meeting on Monday, December
10, to tell the board about their
Camp Westwind experience.
Carly Elwood described the
campers’ activities, which in-
cluded studying and exploring
the forest, beach and estuary
habitats. Elwood said the food
was surprisingly good, her fa-
vorite thing was the night hike
and the worst thing was saying
good-bye. Shane Spiering
spoke about human impact on
the environment, especially wa-
ter and air pollution. He said the
students learned about ways
that humans can have less of
an impact and explained the 4
R’s: Reduce, reuse, recycle
and refuse. Stephan Bradley
said students learned about
adaptations that plants and an-
imals have to help them in their
environments. He also talked
about symbiotic relationships.
Sixth-grade teacher Shannon
Dotson also addressed the
board and thanked them for
budgeting money for outdoor
school that reduced the cost
paid by families by about $50
per student.
Student Services Director
Elaine Fox and Title I teacher
Karen Fox talked to the board
about the state monitoring of
their Title IA Site plan. Elaine
reported that they received two
commendations for their plan,
one for how often students are
assessed and one for commu-
nication with families. She said
that the Title I program brings a
grant of about $200,000 to the
district. The district qualifies for
this grant on the basis of the
number of students receiving
free or reduced lunches, but
the program serves all students
who need additional help learn-
ing to read. Karen described
how the students are identified
and assessed and stressed
that all teaching methods are
scientifically proven.
During their work session,
the board discussed the pro-
posal submitted last month by
the Banks Youth Soccer Asso-
ciation to make soccer a varsity
sport for the high school start-
ing next school year. The board
consensus was in favor of hav-
ing soccer, but several issues
were raised. Some of the board
felt that it would be more appro-
priate to have soccer school-
supported team instead of self-
funded. Kathy Edison pointed
out that self-funded teams rely
heavily on parental support and
a loss of that support can mean
the demise of the sport. How-
ever, the district already has
five self-funded sports, some of
which, including cheer and
cross-country, used to be fund-
ed by the district. The board
questioned how to prioritize
funding for all the different
sports in the district.
Will
Moore would also like to see
how the monies for athletics
are split up among the different
sports and what the actual
costs are to players and to the
district.
Simon Levear, the district
business manager, talked to
the board about implementing
an excise tax. He explained
that this is the first new source
of funding available to school
districts in many years. It would
be a tax on new construction
added to the cost of a building
permit and collected by the
county. The tax is meant to help
offset the costs associated with
development. It would not be
enough to fund new schools for
additional students, but it would
help. Levear pointed out that,
right now, there is very little
building in the school district
but it is important to get the tax
in place before any more major
development takes place. The
board did not make a final deci-
sion about the tax but directed
Levear to look into the options
and what other area districts
are doing.
Pete Edison, co-chair of the
facilities planning committee,
reported that the committee is
still in line to make their final re-
port to the board at the January
14 school board meeting. He
said the committee is also
working towards developing the
steering committee that will run
the next part of the process.
The consent agenda includ-
ed the following personnel
changes:
Resignations were accepted
for:
•
Tad Hansen, instruc-
tional assistant, effective 1/7/08
•
Lori Malcom, play-
ground supervisor, effective
12/7/07
•
Loretta Smith, ESOL
teacher, effective end of 07-08
school year
One year contracts were ap-
proved for:
•
Adam Normand, sec-
ondary math teacher; and
•
Heidi Underhill, instruc-
tional assistant II.
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