The Woodward News

Local News

February 10, 2013

Number of topics on school board agenda

Chris Cooper Woodward News

Woodward, Okla. — Woodward's school board members will deal with a number of agenda items at their monthly meeting Monday.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the school administration building.

Teacher evaluation is one agenda item and Woodward Superintendent Tim Merchant says, "The board will consider an official resolution to our legislators asking for a two year extension on the implementation on the new teacher leader effectiveness system.

"The TLE is the new teacher evaluation system. There are two parts to the TLE, both qualitative and quantitative aspects to it. The qualitative is much more in depth, it involves the principal going into classroom and viewing the teacher. The quantitive is what we're requesting an extension on, which uses students' testing results to evaluate the teachers directly," he added.

Merchant said the extension is being requested, "Because the test for that portion of the evaluation hasn't been developed yet."

"Everything is just kind of up in the air, we're just asking to wait until we know what we're going to be using before we base our teachers' performances on them," the superintendent said.

The board will also consider a resolution concerning the sale of the $5,335,000 building bonds of Woodward school district.

"These are the series bonds approved in 2008, about $5.3 million of those bonds come up to be sold this year. We'll set a time and place for the sale of those bonds," Merchant said.

Merchant said the money from those bonds had been used for the new early childhood center as well as the additions at each of the three elementary schools.

The board will also consider appointing an acting president or clerk for the school district in the event that the president or clerk is unable to be present at the time of the sale.

"You need the president and clerk to be present to sign at the time of the sales," Merchant said.

World War II veteran Eldon Damron will be presented with an honorary high school diploma during the board's meeting.

Merchant said a law passed several years back allows for those who missed their opportunity to obtain a high school diploma due to service during World War II to receive one now.

The board will consider the $5,000 National Board Certified stipends for 2012-2013 as well.

"The state has released money for Nationally Board Certified teachers. Those teachers get an additional $5,000 a year for being Nationally Board Certified, and state finally sent us the money, so now we can award those stipends," Merchant said.

Some clerical work will also take place during the meeting as board members take action on the payment of retirement offsets from the previous fiscal year as well as the purchase of order No. 541 for the previous fiscal year payment of teacher retirements.

"This is cleaning up those payroll items from previous years. Our new payroll person has discovered a few additional items we owe and since its from previous years the board has to specifically approve payment from previous years in current years budget," Merchant said. "The teacher retirement deals with someone whose been with the school a certain number of years, the state pays a certain amount of their retirement, and some of those haven't been coded correctly, so we're just catching it back up."

A new board president and vice president will also be chosen for the new year.

Finally the board will consider the hiring of an elementary teacher at Highland Park, a high school special ed paraprofessional, and an ECC custodian.

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