Thanks for reading Fluco Blog! I’m Perrie Johnson, Fork Union’s representative to the Fluvanna County School Board. My goal with Fluco Blog is to let people know what’s going on at School Board meetings beyond the reports available online. Be forewarned, when it comes to discussions, most of the comments I remember turn out to be mine! Here’s the latest…
Our regular May meeting was just last night (though I’ll probably have to change that intro because it may look like I dash off a post in 5 minutes, but it usually takes more than a day). Meanwhile, we had a special meeting on April 24 to vote for our next superintendent. There was a push to make the announcement as soon as possible in order to let the candidates know if they did or didn’t get the job. I’m uncomfortable not being able to share pretty much anything of the discussion but it’s legally considered confidential personnel information. The best I can do is pass on the comment of our Chair, who stated on the 24th that we had several excellent candidates under serious consideration.
As for last night’s meeting (and it’s still Tuesday so I’m still on track) I declined to approve the list of staff for next year because it included a new administrative director position, in addition to the 6 we already have. I quoted the School Efficiency Review (again) which reported that Fluvanna had 17.8 total administrative positions, compared to our neighboring peer average of only 15. And the review was performed in 2014, we have even fewer students now. I suggested we redirect that administrative money to the classroom. However, the position was approved.
We talked again about how to use the nearly $300,000 in additional state funds for THIS year. Mr. Winkler recommended using some of the money for $300 staff bonuses and applying the rest to vehicles and chromebooks. I shared with the Board my recent discussion with school board members from surrounding counties who all except one (Orange) gave staff an average of at least 2% increases for next year. Fluvanna’s increases averaged only 1.1%. The Board voted to give staff bonuses of $400 and recommended the purchase of more chromebooks.
With a discussion of policy updates came the question of recouping unpaid lunch charges. We’re now required by the USDA to put measures in place to try and collect on losses. Last year we used $41,000 in local money to square up food services accounts because of unpaid charges. In contrast, this year Chesapeake reported only about $4,000 in unpaid charges for 38 elementary and middle schools. Unpaid charges have nothing to do with free lunch recipients. They don’t accrue any charges at all. The measures Fluvanna is considering for collection include phone calls and email notifications, quarterly home mailings, and restriction of participation in extra-curricular activities. I’m highly in favor of trying harder to recoup these losses, though I hesitate to approve the restriction on extra-curricular activities which appears to punish the child rather than the responsible adult.
Toward the end of the meeting the latest staff survey was presented. If you’ve already checked it out online, you may want to look again because information was added during the evening that compared this year to years past. I couldn’t comment much at the time since we hadn’t seen the comparison before, but I have a few observations now. In the spirit of the survey’s 3 strengths and 3 areas of focus, of the seven categories, the 3 that continued their upward trend in positive feedback (compared to last year) were Professional Development, the Superintendent’s Office, and the School Board. The 3 that reversed their upward trend (compared to last year) were Building Administrative Support, Culture and Climate, and Professional Responsibilities.
Building Administrative Support went from having 12 of the 13 positive indicators go up last year, to having 12 of the 13 go down this year. Culture and Climate went from all 4 indicators trending up last year, to 3 of the 4 trending down this year. Professional Responsibilities (a measure of things like class size, instructional assistance, additional duties) changed from all 6 indicators going up last year, to most of them (4 of 6) going down. In total, of the 44 positive indicators, last year only 2 went down compared to the year before. This year 22 were down compared to the previous survey.
Good grief! I might make my post in one day, though I know that last part about the survey is hard to follow. And unfortunately, the post is long. They weirdly get shorter the more I work on them.
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This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. The views expressed in this blog are purely my own and do not represent the Fluvanna County School Board, the school superintendent, or anyone else. Comments added by others are not necessarily my opinions and I am not responsible for their content.
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