Friday, March 29, 2024

Updates given on Peshastin-Dryden cubs and drones

December 17 School Board Meeting

Posted


    The one and only December school board meeting had a heavy to do list to sift through before board members and Cascade School District staff could disperse for the winter holidays. From declaring how long board members remain in their standing officer positions to discussing drones on school grounds - there was a lot to cover during the Monday, December 17 meeting.
    Superintendent Bill Motsenbocker brought up the time span that the school board's chair and vice chair would serve in those positions. The board settled on a two year cap so that a board member can get in the groove of the position in the first year - and then have the opportunity once they have a strong handle on the ins and outs of the position to really become effective once settled in the second year.
    "I would be in full support of two years, especially when moving into a new role, that first year is a huge learning curve and that second year you're quite effective," said vice chair Carrie Sorensen. "(Supporting two year limit because) I think stagnancy is easy to fall into and I think change is good."
    Cascade High School principal, Elia Daley, had a guest appearance at the meeting via Skype to update the board on the graduate rate for the high school. Looking at the grad rates spanning from 2013-2014 to 2017-2018, there has been successful progression for more students to filter out of the high school as graduates. In the 2017-2018 graduation year, 94.3% students graduated, which is a clear indicator that Cascade High School has been successful filtering out a majority of their students as graduates.
    "Students that stay at Cascade, graduate. I think that's a pretty important thing to note," said Daley.
    Cascade High School works hard to keep track of the credits students need to walk across the stage or receive a diploma. Daley mentioned a binder that has every student and what they need to graduate that helps staff keep up with how to nudge students across the finish line. Daley accredits staff, keeping students on campus even in disciplinary action such as ISS (in school suspension) and programs like Discovery, which is a five year plan, that helps the progression of the graduation rate.  
    The board also got the gift of getting an update on some of youngest members of the Cascade School District community - principal Emily Ross came to give a presentation and share some data and pictures of the cubs at Peshastin-Dryden Elementary.
    "This is so important because you can see our students. These little guys are going to be the numbers that Elia is talking about in the future and we're setting a really, really good foundation," said Ross.
    She leaped into the data dashboard by presenting the complete flip flop numbers for kindergartners reading ability in a school year. Kindergartners, first graders and second graders all take an assessment in September. before they dive into the upcoming school year curriculum.
    "Kindergarten had a 1% chance of reading success probability and that means, looking at a variety of indicators, if they didn't have intervention 1% of them would be successful readers when they graduate high school," explained Ross. "Now we know we're going to intervene a lot and we did - by spring we flipped that number around from 16% of the school (kindergarten, first grade and second grade) to 61%."
    Ross also touched on tracking math growth, discussing the school's improvement team and the work the group does - and even exemplified what Peshastin-Dryden students are working on by presenting one student's interactive gingerbread assignment that allowed the student to incorporate a fun project and her parents via technology.
     Sine new policies that were brought up at the meeting was 'unmanned aircraft system and model aircraft' and the installation of security cameras. Unmanned aircraft systems and model aircraft sounds intense, but simply is referring to drones aren't allowed to hover over any of the schools.
    "You can imagine what would happen with all the people with drones now and the video cameras on them - if we got fifteen parents flying their drones over the football game taking pictures, crashing into the stands and what not," said Motsenbocker.
    He stated that no unapproved model aircraft is allowed on school property.
    As for the security cameras, the board has approved video surveillance for both security measures from outside threats to holding students accountable for their actions if they try to dispute their involvement in altercations or certain behavior.
    "You walk into any of our schools and you're on video from the time you're in the parking lot to the time you leave. Though it limits those who have access to it (must have permission from the parent of a student before showing their child on the recording in a setting with third party individuals)," said Motsenbocker.
    All the i's were dotted and t's were crossed at the last meeting before winter break - which marks the halfway mark of what is seemingly a smooth running school year.

Some other business attended to at the meeting:
- Approval of the resignation of Cascade High School girls JV basketball coach, Christy Davies
- Approval of the hire of two new Cascade JV girls basketball coaches: Levi Fabian and Katie Kiele
- The Robotics Team was approved by the board to take an overnight trip to compete at State on January 11-12.
- The Speech and Debate team was also approved for an overnight trip on Feb. 1-3.
- Motsenbocker briefed the board over various health related subjects: infectious diseases, medications on school grounds and anaphylaxis prevention and response (i.e. things like peanut and latex allergy concerns).

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