By Marissa Winkel, For Spring Hill Schools
The Spring Hill Schools Board of Education met April 8, 2024 at the District Administrative Center to discuss several items. The following are important highlights from the meeting:
Action Items
Discussion Items
Good News, Recognitions, & Announcements
Tammy Endecott, Spring Hill Elementary principal, recognized two individuals among her staff with Core Value Awards.
First, she recognized Amanda Dempsay for the core value of Supportive Environment. “She is a leader in our building. She works with staff to help them be proactive with behaviors, social-emotional skills, and executive functioning skills. She will go in and do class observations and work closely with our staff. She does one-on-one meetings with the staff, she has meetings with parents, and she meets with me a lot and helps me with a lot of things. She’s really consistent and helps our building be consistent…and we couldn’t do what we do in Spring Hill without her,” Endecott said.
Secondly, she recognized Jessica Camplain for the core value of Student Success. “[She’s a first year teacher and] I have gone into her classroom and observed students who typically are sitting and not participating and not doing anything…and these kids [as] I walked in…I was just shocked because kids were [like ‘hey call on me!’ ‘call on me!’]. She has really developed a positive learning environment where she’s built great relationships with kids…and she’s had great success raising scores”.
This month’s What’s Going Well video showcases the great things happening at Spring Hill Middle.
Action Items
As discussed in the previous meeting, a review and refinement have been made on the procedures for Library Media Center materials. “We’ve been working on the guidelines and procedures [for] instructional materials. This one is simply to follow through with the protocols for Library Media Center materials because they do have a little bit different framework to operate from,” as well as areas where state statute is implemented, Dr. Link Luttrell, superintendent, said. The procedures were approved by the Board.
Discussed in a previous meeting, the Board considered adding an additional SRO for coverage of the schools. This is to take effect in the next calendar school year. For the time being, the Board will observe the benefits of having a third SRO until they consider whether a fourth SRO could be necessary given the associated cost to the district. Tim Meek, director of construction & safety, and Dr. Luttrell have continued to work with the Johnson County Sheriff's Department to develop a contract for increasing the number of SROs in the district. A clause was added to the contract that lists the potential cost of having a fourth SRO, but that it is subject to future consideration. The Board approved to have a third SRO for the next calendar school year.
Discussed in previous meetings, Dr. Joshua Robinson, assistant superintendent, has continued to organize new information on capacity determination on account of open enrollment procedures for future school years. Dr. Robinson recommended the number of open seats to be available for each grade level in each school of the district for the 2024-2025 school year. The Board approved the capacity numbers for open enrollment.
The Board was presented with a potentialmeeting schedule for future Board meetings so as to avoid conflict with other events happening in 2025. The Board approved the amended meeting schedule, with additional work session dates of 9/30/24,12/02/24, 03/03/25 and 04/07/25, and removing the 03/31/25 work session date.
As discussed in a previous meeting, the high school presented a thespian trip and a national debate competition trip. The responsibility to cover the financial cost of school group trips will be further discussed at future dates. The Board approved both trips.
Also discussed in the previous meeting, the current plan for elementary students provides iPads to kindergarten - first grade levels and Chromebooks for second - fifth grade levels. Due to student growth and damage to devices, replacing second grade Chromebooks with iPads was requested. The Board approved the purchase of iPads with Keyboards for second grade.
Discussion Items
The Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) provides the district with the service of evaluating the entirety of the district’s policies and procedures to ensure they are in alignment with state statutes. Evaluation is also done to be sure they are in alignment with local protocols and procedures. It has been since 2014 that the district had an evaluation done on the policies. “We thought it would be a good idea to get a cost proposal from KASB to see if they would undertake an extensive review of all of our policies and come back and send a recommendation for what we might need to do to bring up any compliance or maybe remove, delete or upgrade [any policies],” Dr. Luttrell said. According to Dr. Robinson, KASB would provide a high-level evaluation to ensure the district’s protocols are where they should be by state and local requirements. It would be an approximately six month process for KASB to go through the district’s entire policy manual. Board approval consideration will take place at a future meeting.
Dr. Erin Smith, director of teaching & learning, provided an overview of the district’s consideration of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Baker University. “Our high school team was approached by Baker University about offerings for some courses this summer through their programming where students can earn dual credit,” Dr. Smith said. This would offer courses in areas like science and composition for students to get out of the way prior to going to college. “If our students opt to, they can register through Bake University, receive a reduced credit hour rate…They can complete the course over the summer.” This would be the first time the district is partnering with Baker University, and it will be brought forward for further discussion and formalization at a future meeting.
All standard classrooms in the schools have a projector, amplified audio, and an AppleTV. The current set of AppleTV devices ranges from a year old to 12 years old. There have also been device and performance failures seen; many of the devices also fail to support any further software updates. It was recommended to the Board to replace these older devices, located in SHES, PCES, WCES, SHMS, and 2007-constructed classrooms at SHHS.
It was recommended to the Board to replace the current five-year-old Storage Area Network array. Currently, the array can hold up to 6.2 TB of hard drive storage; half of that storage is used for the 45 virtual servers. A proposal suggests a replacement providing 13.69 TB of usable drive space. As the district is overseeing continuous growth, storage should also be increased to meet the capacity needs in the next five years.
Clay Frigon, high school assistant principal/athletic director, provided an overview on purchasing new wrestling mats for the high school. “The high school is requesting to purchase four new wrestling mats. Our program has really grown over the past few years,” Frigon said. “Currently, we are utilizing some of the middle school wrestling mats after their season is over.” Every school has two mats: a practice mat and a competition mat. Frigon said that purchasing four additional mats would allow the high school to be able to not have to move the mats from school to school as much.
Michelle Hackney, director of human resources, provided an update on the district’s hiring process. Hackney indicated areas that have been challenging to fill positions for, what areas are doing well in the hiring process, and areas that need positions filled. In June, there will be a follow-up discussion on the continued hiring efforts. Hackney noted that she has seen great candidates in the recent process.
The complete agenda and presented information are available by visiting BoardDocs.
The complete meeting recording is available by visiting the Spring Hill Schools YouTube channel.
