Even though the Watonga School District is on holiday break, the work the teachers and staff began before the holidays will have far reaching effects into the new year.
Teachers spent their professional development day on Friday analyzing testing data f or state and ACT test predictions for the high school and working on strategies for students dealing with chronic absenteeism, trying to find solutions.
Chronic absenteeism is one of the markers used in the so-called school report card, which should be issued soon.
The teachers were also using professional development days to build unit tests for upcoming units, essentially tailoring the instruction to the test goals. This and other goals and accomplishments were touched on Dec. 12 at the regular school board meeting.
The board learned at that meeting gross production tax for November was on par with the previous four months, at slightly more than $461,000, but the income to the district dropped for December to $351,000 or thereabouts.
Superintendent Kyle Hilterbran said planning for the new buildings being financed through a bond issue was moving ahead, even though the costs of the construction continue to change, and not in a good way.
“Inflation is real,” he told the board. “It has hit our bonds, but we are making good decisions to give the public what we promised them.” Hilterbran said the key was working through the projects slowly and carefully and the bond money is collecting interest while the planning is finished.
He also said the district has enough in reserve to meet any unforeseen shortage in the construction.
The board brought in a few dollars by sending old chromebook computers to surplus, where they were sold for $4 each. The laptops were outdated, out of warranty and the software had lapsed. The purchaser will harvest some of the elements from the computers for recycling/reuse. There were about 1000 laptops in the surplus inventory.