Thursday, March 28, 2024

UPDATE: Long awaited Beaver Valley property decision made

Posted

    The anticipated Beaver Valley surplus property has been on the forefront of priorities for a handful of community members. Many residents have filtered in and out of school board meetings, eager to see how the Cascade School District will go about selling the property. At the February 25 school board meeting, the decision on how to sell the property was finally established - among other business.
    The school board unanimously decided on the third option: minimum $340,000 price with no development, no well and the school district develops the play field on their property.
    "It seems option three is less paperwork, less work, same amount of money," said Cyndi Garza, school board member. "If it doesn't work, we try it again in a different way, it seems reasonable."

  Four finalists for the Cascade School District Superintendent position was unveiled, Tuesday February 25. After a lengthy executive session prior to the meeting, the candidates chosen were: Cascade High School principal, Elia Ala'ilima-Daley, Marc Brouillet, Wade Barringer and Tracey Beckendor-Edou
    Prior to the property decision being made - Tim Bentz, Cascade Transportation Director, came to update the school board on the transportation branch of the school district. He came bearing mostly good news - there were only two delays in the month of January and in comparison to the last school year, the school district is in much better shape with plenty of substitute bus drivers to fill needed spots.
    However he did note lower ridership due to the large younger population in Leavenworth no longer needing to ride the bus out to Peshastin-Dryden Elementary.
    "I was a little bit concerned about the dollars we generated this year because our ridership count is actually down," said Bentz. "And I've pretty much come to the conclusion that most of the major part of the reason we're down is because of the one year moving PD (Peshastin-Dryden) to Leavenworth. That's hit us on a couple of our routes."
    But he emphasized that they still transport the Leavenworth based children, but its within the mile radius of the destination so it doesn't generate funding. Bentz did propose an idea for funding for things, such as purchasing new buses, from his own brainstorming and background - a levy.
    "We're going to have to get creative some years if we're going to buy one every year," said Bentz. "..possibly including bus dollars in a levy. Its just something you might want to consider, because the rate we're at now, there will be some years we won't be able to buy one every year, unless we come up with some other ways to come up with the shortfall."
    Another special guest appearance was Food Services director, Colin Levi, the man in charge of delegating nutrition services for students. He updated the board on the two new kitchens condition and how that has positively impacted the students meals - including the exciting addition of homemade pizza.
    "Its just opened up a whole world of more scratch cooking we can do. We've got steamers, we've got grills, we've got a pizza oven. We've started making our own pizza dough," said Levi.
    Despite serving slices of pizza, nutrition is still prioritized for students. Levi confirmed the school district is still sticking to whole grains (even with the pizza dough), the salad bar has become quite the hit for students recently and kept a heavy emphasis on fresh fruit offered to the students.
    Speaking of fresh fruits and veggies, this led Levi to bring up the pilot program that they started three years ago for the school district and an update on that.
    "You can take the commodity dollars and divert some of them to getting fresh fruit and vegetables," said Levi. "This year we put another $5,000 in and unfortunately, the people we used to buy fresh fruits and veggies from have dropped the program."
    Levi places the blame here on the immense amount of paperwork that the government requires from the produce vendors and farmers - and paperwork is a universal nightmare, so it has been difficult to find sources to provide for the program. But Levi is still looking for other avenues and programs to secure veggies and fruit for students. Lastly, Levi noted that the school district is no longer allowed to single out students getting an alternative meal due to owing lunch money, because the state believes that is "shaming children".


Other business tended to:
- Action was taken on several policies and procedures: Suicide Prevention, Maintaining Professional Staff and Student Boundaries, Equivalency Credit for Career and Technical Education Courses.
- Stuart Beckman hire was approved as the Cascade High School assistant soccer coach. He is a Icicle River Middle School teacher, so a familiar face.
- There was a resignation from the 7th grade softball coach, which is now an open position.
- A first reading introduction to a policy and procedure regarding technology.
 
 

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here