School board discusses issues

Robin Westphall took the oath of office and officially joined the Wahkiakum School District Board of Directors on Tuesday.

Dick Swart, a councilman for the Town of Cathlamet, Duncan Cruickshank, the public works director for the town and Paul Lacy, the Wahkiakum County engineer shared their thoughts on pedestrian and bicycle routes around town and asked the board for support regarding grants for which they planned to apply.

“In order to make these projects happen,” Swart said, “we have to get grants. The county doesn’t have the money; the town doesn’t have the money. We will be asking the school for political support, because it is very important to the state that the community is together on these things.”

With a full board, Superintendent Bob Garrett asked them to revisit self assessment and Policy 1340, which tasks the board with holding the district accountable for student learning. Adopting the policy is optional.

Paula Culbertson responded.

“We have things brought to us and we make decisions,” she said, “but personally I would like to see us more involved in the planning piece as far as setting goals for the school district. The State of Washington actually requires us to give our superintendent an evaluation. How can we evaluate our superintendent if we aren’t helping him set goals? If we don’t have goals for what we’re doing? We could adopt this policy and don’t implement it, what’s the point? We could try these things and show we are a grown up board, that we are going forward and we are helping our superintendent and our principals go forward with the district. I think this is a really good guideline to do that.”

The board members agreed to do a self assessment and then schedule a workshop in a couple weeks to begin discussing goals.

Garrett spoke to the board about the financial burden on ASB, the Associated Student Body, at both the high school and middle school.

“The ASBs are getting taxed with a lot of fiscal requirements that it has almost become insurmountable for them without doing a multitude of fundraisers,” Garrett said. “Part of our levy funds are used for the support of extracurricular programs in the area of coaches salaries and benefits and transportation to events. ASB has been responsible to pay for officials, for lodging at any post season tournaments, for all of their equipment, supplies, and uniforms. As you can imagine, costs continue to go up.

“My opinion, I doubt that the community would be upset if the board were to assist the ASB with paying for some of these expenses that have escalated over the years.”

According to Garrett, officials for high school athletics cost over $11,000 last year.

“We lose money at every game,” Principal Theresa Libby said of middle school sports, “especially basketball, when we need two officials for every game.”

The school board tabled the matter.

Four portables at the far end of the elementary school have been there since the 1980s, and on Tuesday, Garrett asked the board to consider purchasing one or two double classroom portables to replace them.

“The district is financially in better shape than it has been in the 20 years that I’ve been here,” Garrett said.

The discussion will continue.

The board voted to accept two separate bids from Carlson’s Heating and Air Conditioning. The first one is to provide an air conditioning system to the switch room, which is located in the boiler room at the grade school for $6996.03. The second is to provide air conditioning for the grade school library for $16,951.66. Carlson’s bid for the libary was nearly $7,000 more than the other bid from Entek.

Shelby Deaton, district clerk at the school was the coordinator for Doernbecher Week. She gave a presentation on the week’s activities and fundraising results. Students were able to raise $3,531.37 for Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland.

At the high school, students paid $142.60 to have Mr. Cox, the history teacher, put in “jail”. Students got to have a free period in each of his classes that day. A Mule Pie Slingshot Bingo raised $600, and a Mother Daughter Tea raised $279. Students at the grade school bought 252 root beer floats at $1 apiece.

The board also accepted resignations from golf coach Bill Olsen, school counselor Tony Harmon and the kindergarten teacher, Corissa Blix, who will finish out the school year. Trina Gartski was approved as the part time custodian.

The next school board meeting is scheduled for April 19 at 5:30 p.m. in the high school library.