Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

WORLAND - The Washakie County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees honored retiring secretary Laura McDonald and outgoing board members Julie Haun and Susan Scheuerman at Monday's meeting.

McDonald began working for the district in July 1999 and retired at the end of October as one of the Worland High School secretaries. She received a plaque and congratulations from the board

Scheuerman has served the district for 20 years on the board, first elected in 1996 and then opting not to seek another term this year.

She said in an interview Tuesday, "It was extremely fun and I served with a lot of awesome people on the board and a lot of great administrators and teachers, just the whole support stuff." Scheuerman said she will miss those she worked with during her service on the board.

She added that she felt there were some great accomplishments in 20 years including the new middle school and keeping up the other facilities.

"It was fun, but it was time. Twenty years is a long time."

Julie Haun has served the district on the board for the past eight years. She had sought a third term, noting in a recent interview with the Daily News prior to the election that the past eight years serving on school board have been rewarding. She was seeking a third term to continue to have the reward of overseeing the education of the community's most valuable assets, the children.

"It's a wonderful way for me to give back to my community. I want all kids to have every opportunity to go to his or her furthest potential in education. As a board, in the last eight years we've accomplished a lot ... We've implemented PLC (personal learning community) for our school district and it is helping each student and teacher individually. We have implemented high school orange period to give students time to catch up, and to protect our children and teachers, we've put in a policy for drug testing," Haun said.

Both received a plaque and Worland Warrior jackets from the board. An open house was held for the board members prior to Monday's meeting as well for staff and the public to wish them well.

Haun and Scheuerman had fun in their final meeting. When discussion turned to changing the meeting date in December from Dec. 26 (during Christmas break) to the week prior on Dec. 19, Scheuerman, laughingly moved and Haun seconded a motion to leave the meeting date on Dec. 26. The motion failed with only the two outgoing members voting in favor.

A second motion to move the meeting to Dec. 19 at 7:30 p.m., was approved unanimously.

Superintendent David Nicholas said the meeting does conflict with the West Side Christmas program but nearly every date in December would conflict with another school activity, he noted.

The board also recognized several athletic and academic achievements, including Wyoming High School Activities Association Good Sportsmanship Award for the WHS volleyball team for the match against Torrington on Oct. 7, 2016; and for the football team for the game against Powell on Oct. 7.

Personnel

The board handled a number of personnel matters Monday evening. They offered contracts to all current middle school coaches for the 2017-2018 school year; hired Courtney Burky as assistant girls basketball coach, Danielle Warren as head boys swimming coach, Liz Becher and Sarah Staley as assistant forensics coaches and Amy Lamm as Future Business Leaders of America advisor.

Jamie Stockwell was hired as a part-time special education paraprofessional, replacing Elizabeth Jolley.

An additional EL (English learner) paraprofessional, Amanda Kretz, was hired. Nicholas said the position will be paid out of the general fund. "We've received an addition to our EL population and we need to support those students," he said at Monday's meeting.

Other business

In other business at Monday's meeting:

-The board scheduled an attendance hearing for four students at the high school who have already reached 15 absences. The meeting tonight will be in executive session since it is regarding students. The board will be meeting with the students.

-The board will be meeting with area legislators about the upcoming session that begins Jan. 10. Nicholas said he will try and set a meeting up the week of Dec. 19.

"The budget process is going to be difficult for those people, and it's going to be hard for you. Having this conversation is even more important this year," Nicholas said. He added that while the state won't have a lot of extra money for education (currently facing a shortfall in some areas of education), the meeting will be an opportunity "to tell them you're in it together, that you're willing to work together."

-Board member Anna Venable said she would like to see the attendance at parent-teacher conferences for the high school increase. The most recent conferences showed 54.52 percent participation for WHS parents, 94 percent for Worland Middle School parents, 100 percent at all three elementary schools.

It was noted that perhaps some parents with freshmen or students new to Worland didn't understand how the conferences worked since at the elementary schools and WMS they only see one teacher.

WMS Principal Ryan Clark said while they were at 94 percent the other parents who did not attend the conferences were contacted and a conference was held over the phone. He said this year, instead of assigning parents to a student's homeroom teacher, they were assigned to the teacher where the student has the lowest grade. If all grades were the same, then it defaulted to the homeroom teacher.

-During reports, East Side Principal Ken Dietz said they are working with the students to understand the lockdown procedures when they are in different parts of the school including at recess and in the lunchroom.

He said they also are developing different activities at recess including glee club, chess and most recently peer tutoring where some of the older students are helping the younger students for about 7 minutes of recess time.