With the new school year looming just over the horizon, the Blue Ridge School Board welcomed 2 new members of the professional staff at its August meeting on the 22nd. Nicole Dvorshock will become the school psychologist, and Joseph Page is a new secondary math teacher.
New school psychologist Nicole Dvorshock
New math teacher Joseph Page
The new Special Education Director, Gail Wnorowski, taking a seat at the table for the first time, seemed especially pleased with the appointment of the new psychologist.
The evening actually opened at 6 o’clock with a meeting of Edward Arnold’s Facilities & Grounds committee. The major item on that agenda was the unbudgeted, extraordinary expenditure of some $234,000 to repair the sewer line under the cafeteria floor. Once the floor was jackhammered open, a break was found. That was repaired, but because of the alignment of the piping, it was necessary to install a “grinder pump” in the line at an extra cost of almost $52,000 over the original estimate. Business Manager Brian Dolan was pleased with the work of the engineers and contractors, who completed the major work nearly on schedule. The new concrete has to cure for 28 days, so the area – which can already be walked on – will be given a temporary cover until new tile can be installed. The design of the new tiling will include a representation of the school’s name.
The committee gave considerable attention to finding a new, permanent home for the wrestling team, which has been moved hither and yon for a number of years.
Another major failure was reported, requiring the replacement of a heat exchanger in the 2,500-gallon domestic water heater at another unbudgeted cost of about $26,000.
Mr. Dolan and Mr. Arnold outlined a process that will complete and document a comprehensive plan for the schools’ infrastructure that they hope will be updated annually. Mr. Dolan said that the next major project may be the replacement of the 25-year-old air conditioning units on the roofs. He said that Blue Ridge had been foresighted in accumulating small amounts over the years allowing such major repairs and replacements without having to borrow.
Once the full Board gathered, President Chris Lewis read out a resolution congratulating Zach Conrad and Harrison Pasrsons for achieving the Advanced Placement Scholar Award for scoring 3 or higher on 3 or more AP exams. Mr. Conrad’s father accepted the certificate for his son, who will be studying petroleum engineering at Marietta College, where he will also be playing football. Mr. Parsons accepted his certificate in person.
AP Award recipient Harrison Parsons
The business agenda was fairly routine for this time of year, including a few personnel actions in addition to the new professional staff:
- Renewed the dual-enrollment agreement with Keystone College.
- Renewed the Student Assistance Program with Trehab for drug and alcohol counseling.
- Renewed the agreement with Pennsylvania Treatment and Healing for “alternative education” services for disruptive students.
- Renewed the memorandum of understanding for the “Foster Grandparent” program sponsored by B/S/S/T Area Agency on Aging.
- Renewed the memorandum of understanding with the NorthEastern Instructional Unit #19 for providing substitute teachers and early-intervention programs.
The Board heard a brief report from Alicia Ross on her experience at a program sponsored by the College Boards in Salt Lake City learning the ins and outs of grading “free-response” questions on advanced placement exams. She will be expected to pass along what she learned to her colleagues.
Board member Jessica Wright reported on a 3-hour training session attended by bus drivers that covered a variety of topics, including use of the radios, and discipline. As the first and last school authorities the students see each day, they were asked to ensure that their attitude toward their riders is supportive and positive.
Matthew Nebzydoski, Principal of Curriculum and Instruction, offered a presentation on preliminary results from the PSSA exams; final data won’t be available until October. Whatever the positive spin Mr. Nebzydoski tried to give it, board members noted some shortcomings buried in the welter of statistics and acronyms. In most categories of reading and math and most grade levels, absolute scores declined. To some degree, that resulted over the past 2 years from the increased difficulty of the exams; the science scores continued relatively stable, perhaps because those exams have not yet been changed.
The figures that Mr. Nebzydoski focused on were the progression of scores as a “cohort” moved through the grades. The most marked drop was in the scores of sixth graders from the scores achieved by the same group of students in earlier grades. Mr. Nebzydoski attributed the declines in part to the fact that 6th grade is a transitional year in the lives of most students.
Mr. Nebzydoski also showed some statistics on graduation rates for cohorts. While in any one year the absolute number of dropouts may go up or down slightly, the number of students who graduate after a full four years at Blue Ridge has been steadily rising, to more than 95% in the past 2 years.
The discussion of the statistics naturally centered around what to do about it. Mr. Nebzydoski said that while much attention has been given in recent years to reading, the same level of focus has not been given to mathematics. He offered a number of strategies that his colleagues on the teaching staff are using to address the issues, including the same sort of “early intervention” in math that has been adopted for reading.
Following the reports of administrators, Mr. Lewis launched into a discussion of “goals” that the Board might ask its administrators to focus on for the coming school year. Aside from the obvious ones like improving student achievement, he listed a few of interest for his colleagues to consider:
- Improve the performance of the guidance department.
- Should the district maintain a presence on social media (Facebook, Twitter)? Ms. Wright pointed out that the district has a very good website; what are ya gonna do when a parent posts a question to a Facebook group like, “When is the first day of school?”
- The creation, documentation and management of short-term and long-term preventive maintenance plans, particularly for “big-ticket” items.
- Development of more rigorous “general education” courses.
- Find a way to ensure that someone will answer the phone.
The Board will review lists of proposed goals on the next meeting night, September 6, 2016, at 6:00pm.
And finally, Mr. Lewis said that he was “thoroughly disappointed and disgusted” with the “informational” session sponsored by the League of Women Voters whose prominent speaker, Dr. Paul Connett, lambasted the waste management industry. He said the gathering – at the Blue Ridge auditorium – was “essentially one-sided”, “pro-liberal” and “anti-incinerator.” He said that although it was billed as an informational session, in fact it was not, and he was chagrined at the number of people collecting petitions and distributing literature outside the school entrance in opposition to the proposed incinerator project.
Defending the League, Ms. Ross said that the Tyler Corners group – the project’s promoters – had been invited, but declined, or chose to ignore the invitation. She said that perhaps the schools have a responsibility to support the freedom of association.
The next public meeting of the Blue Ridge School Board is scheduled for Tuesday, September 6, 2016, at 7:00pm in the cafeteria in the Elementary School. That’s the same day that classes begin promptly at 8:07am.
