The winter of 2014 has created problems for Wamego school facilities. At Monday’s USD 320 Board of Education meeting, Grounds and Transportation Director Larry Hannan took the floor by saying ”Here I come talking about money.” .
According to Hannan, after the snow storms, the schools reported numerous roof leaks, and presented a proposal for a roof condition inspection for all USD 320 property from Benchmark Engineers for consideration. He said the total cost of the inspection will be about 75-hundred dollars. After addressing the scope of the inspection, Hannan said a similar inspection was done in 2010. He said this report was a 5-year plan, but to his knowledge none of the repair recommendations were ever completed. The board decided to table the decision until it has a chance to review the 2010 study.
USD 320 is revisiting the issue of Summer School again. Superintendent Denise O’Dea began the discussion by saying she’ s never been in favor of summer school programs, and had met with Central Elementary’ s Principal Teri Dow, and West Elementary’s Principal Amy Flinn.
According to Flinn, Wamego re-implemented traditional summer school last year, the first time since 2007. After breaking down the costs associated with last year’s program, both she and Dow feel the funds could be reallocated to a full-time At-Risk teaching position split between Central and West. She said they currently have 2 ½ Title 1/At-Risk teachers at Central and 1 ½)Title 1/At Risk teachers at West. This would bring the total to 3 full-time teachers at Central and 2 full-time teachers at West. They felt having 177 days of teaching At-Risk students would far out-weigh 19 ½ days of summer school. The Board approved the request by a vote of 5 to 0.
In other business, the Board voted 4 to 1 to hire a full-time reading specialist, split between the Middle School and High School to help struggling students. Board member Mark Bettencourt opposed. Also, the Board asked for and received a detailed presentation on the Special Education Special Services Cooperative from Director Rebekah Helget.
