Notes From Rock Hill Work Session on June 13, 2011

The board took action on two items during the meeting Monday Night:

• The board approved the administrations request to look into refunding general obligation bonds series 2003 to save money. The vote was 7-0
• The board voted to uphold the administrations position on a student transfer request. The vote was 4-3 (Reid, Douglas, and Sharp against)

This was an information packed meeting. Significant items discussed were:

• The administration presented their proposed budget for the next school year. It will be available on the district web site in the near future. The administration was asked to provide a list of software ($500,000) which was added to the budget due to a reduction in federal funding. The administration is now proposing to increase athletics fees to $60 to cover insurance (whether student already has insurance or not). It was suggested this may be contrary to the policy which was just approved in May and that they should review policy and make changes if necessary and bring back to the board.
• The use of school activity buses over the summer by groups in Rock Hill.
• Preparations for the district to become a tobacco free district over the next few months.
• The expansion of the district's 4k program for next year.
• An innovative classroom pilot for a 5th grade class at York Road for next year.
• A proposal from the administration to increase lunch prices because of a change in funding by the federal government for free and reduced lunches. Districts must increase their lunch prices if that price is lower than the reimbursement price from the federal government.
• The administration reported they would like for the board to address these topics in August; pay for performance; use of social media; self selection for schools.
• The District email system will be replaced by one hosted outside the district. This should be a good thing - although conversions never are a good thing. Everyones email address will be changing. Conversion will be done in stages during the school year. The District office will be converted this summer.
• Power School will be converted to servers outside the district. This too is a good thing. This should greatly minimize the downtime teachers have experienced over the past year.
• Teacher voice mail will be eliminated unless teacher request theirs to be kept. There are apparently a lot of unused voice mail boxes at a cost of $1800 per month.
• Some emails are being archived. The administration was asked to begin working on a policy for when (and how) to archive emails.