LIBERTY-BENTON LOCAL SCHOOLS

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2007

REGULAR BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING

BOARD OF EDUCATION OFFICE 9190 CO. RD. 9, FINDLAY OHIO

REGULAR BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING 6:00 P.M.

STRATEGIC PLANNING WORK SESSION IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING

 

I.                    Call to Order

Pledge of Allegiance ……………………………………………Jeff Shadle, Board President

II.                 Recognition of Visitors

III.               Approval of minutes of the following board of education meetings:

Monday, September 17, 2007 regular and special board of education meeting

September 27, 2007 special board of education meeting

October 2, 2007 special board of education meeting

October 11, 2007 special board of education meeting

IV.              Communications and Discussion

V.                 Principals’ Reports

Brian Burkett, Bruce Otley, Brenda Frankart

VI.              Treasurer’s Report ………………………………………………………………Lisa Dobbins

VII.            Superintendent’s Report ……………………………………………………….Dennis Recker

VIII.         New Business

A.     Approve Consent Agenda, to include:

1.      Listing of bills, expenditures, and investments through 9/30/07, and monthly financial report of the Treasurer.

2.      Approve appropriations for October 2007

3.      Approve the following “Then and Now” purchase orders:

PO 130579 Hancock County Board of MR/DD

PO 130584 Shelley Smith

4.      Accept from Ohio Department of Education $9000 Ohio K-12 Network FY08 Building Connectivity Subsidy Payment

5.      Approve transfer from fund 001 (General Fund) to fund 451 (OneNet) in the amount of $21,000.00

6.      Accept Martha Holden Jennings Grant in the amount of $2946 for Grants to Educators

7.      Accept 1st quarter EMIS FY08 subsidy payment in the amount of $1000

8.      Accept Gifted Supplemental Identification Funds in the amount of $3632.07

9.      Approve the obsolete/disposed of listing

10.  Approve the following resignation:

Marshal Headley, 8th grade Girls Basketball Coach effective September 18, 2007

11.  Approve the following classified staff members for the 2007-08 school year:

Janet Petrella, substitute

Judy Long, substitute

12.  Approve the following extra-curricular staff for the 2007-08 school year:

Sarah Santilli, Before School Chorus Instructor

Kyle Doll, Assistant Middle School Football Coach

Susan Haseley, Speech Team Coach

Sarah Santilli, Director of Musical Productions

Zach Thomas, Musical Coordinator

Sarah Santilli and Zach Thomas, Vocal Co-Directors

Brenda Hoyt-Brackman, Musical Choreographer

B.     Approve Ashley Hughes, senior high school tuition student, 2007-08 school year

C.     Approve agreement with Ms. Shelly Smith to transport her child to Ohio School for the Blind, effective 2007-08 school year

D.     Motion to suspend the practice of three policy readings to approve the 2007 policy 8310, to replace 2004 policy 8310, Public Records.

E.      Approve Superintendent to attend Public Records Training

F.      Approve local FFA representatives to attend the National Convention October 24-27, 2007 in Indianapolis, Indiana, and speech team to attend competition in Downers Grove, Illinois to be held the weekend of January 17, 2008

IX.              Other Business

X.                 Executive Session

XI.              Adjournment

 

 

 

LIBERTY-BENTON LOCAL SCHOOLS

DENNIS L. RECKER, SUPERINTENDENT

OCTOBER 2007 DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION REPORT

 

  1. Note the article “Report: Schools Aren’t Preparing Kids for College”.  I’ve placed in the margins, things we’ve done since 1980, plus what the article envisions, we have instituted as a practice at L-B.  (Item A)
  2. The New York Times has an article about a kindergarten class that will be tracked for 13 years.  Interesting, because we’re now doing reporting on our graduates of 2007, based on our performance tracking we utilized the past 14 years.  (Item B)
  3. Here is a potential pitfall regarding all day kindergarten.  This should be at least a couple years away from us.  Hopefully the state will fund the program by then.  (Item C)
  4. To give you some insight as to the number of special education support staff there are serving L-B special needs children, I was asked to provide those support staff access to L-B student records.  This allows these people linkage to grade reporting, testing data, and to ensure we are meeting all our obligations of the IEP.  To make a long story short, this required authorization is for 34 ESC staff members, ranging from clerical to therapeutic staff.
  5. I got this note from a supervisor from Northwest Ohio.  She’s been following our presentations and is excited about our research, especially our concept of crystallized intelligence.  She sent me this item on intelligence which reinforces what L-B is about as a school.  (Item D)
  6. Here is a most interesting article on No Child Left Behind.  I noted by asterisk how the federal government is opposed to using other ways to meet goals.  They must do this if we’re all to be declared failures by 2014.  Our performance data is so compelling, that sometimes we need to defend what our children and teachers are actually accomplishing.  (Item E)
  7. Since we joined our natural gas consortium, you can see how our gas savings have been.  This has been beneficial to us.  We took action to continue our current consortium for an additional year.  We found out that we were being charged 6 cents per decatherm for administrative costs, which is 3.2% of our savings.  In addition, we have our own administrative fee to Ottawa County of ¾ of 1% and 1/3 of 1% for membership to pay our coordinator, attorneys, and office help.  On our $15,863 in savings, we paid our total fees of $698.  Anyways, this was an “issue” with one of our members, so we had a huge “discussion” about administrative costs.  I just thought how interesting this chain of events was, when we’re hassling over $524 after the group has saved us nearly $16,000.  Sometimes it is fun to watch how other people act.  (Item F)
  8. We have mailed copies of school and district grade cards from ODE.  To give you an indication of why it is important we seek to let people know our perspective of performance, you’ll see that each building met their AYP target.  However, as a district, we did not, and are “at risk”.  Interesting, when we were one of 33 schools out of 820 who had the highest level of ACT participation with top quartile college bound results.
  9. The Ohio ACT State Organizational Council has asked for a representative to serve on their council.  The current state representative is Mabel Freeman of Ohio State, who was good enough to work with us as we sought dual enrollment opportunities with OSU.  They have our studies, were impressed, and we now have Mr. Gerken serving us as the invited L-B representative on the state council.
  10. Enclosed is a perspective of how the public sector eventually rewards its employees.  (Item G)
  11. As an FYI, Mr. Horstman just sent me a state report that we have 100% of staff deemed highly qualified.  We are also seeing an increase in poverty, with 15% of students in this category.  What makes me so proud of these children and families is their overall commitment to education and our high levels of academic performance.
  12. I’d like to “flash back” four years.  Eventually, the responsibility of maintaining the fiscal integrity of a school district rests with the superintendent.  Since all recommendations are required from the superintendent, there has to be a rationale to make those recommendations.  Enclosed are the 5 year forecasts of July 2003 and September 2007.  Had the 2003 forecast remained “true”, we would have been in the midst of a 1.5 million dollar deficit this year.  However, looking at the most recent forecast of September 2007, we are seeing “deja vue all over again”.

    13.  

    Up to now, we’ve been able to make decisions that would create a positive impact three and four years into the future.  We’ve been able to maintain a cash balance, evolve to one of Ohio’s highest performing school districts in terms of overall student academic achievement, and provide our children expanded extra curricular programming.  If we’re looking at this from a “30,000 foot perspective”, we can’t help but be proud of our children and our school.  (Item H)

  1. Governor Strickland was good enough to address our superintendent’s organization on October 3.  He re-iterated that current school funding is unconstitutional, and has been declared so the last ten years.  However, due to state “politics”, there has been no attempt at correcting the problem the last ten years.

    2. He stated that any job worth having in Ohio, now and in the future, will require post secondary education.

    Interestingly, as folks tend to bash our public system, our world competitors are studying our educational systems to see how we are able to nurture creativity, which is our strong suit.  He’s asked that we continue this and not get caught in using tests to punish students, or to be the only measure used to determine school success.

    He’s asking that NCLB be changed to have testing be prescriptive in nature and termed NCLB as cruel and abusive.

    What he sees are four needs, from his perspective.  1. Schools need to be more innovative, 2. Give administrators more authority, especially in instruction, 3. Give teachers time to collaborate and to learn, and 4. Use achievement and proficiency testing to move to higher levels of learning.

  1. At our opening workshop for superintendents this past Tuesday, the presenter, Dr. McNulty provided some research and some theory regarding academic growth.  Schools either get better or worse.  L-B now has improved in performance 9 of the last 10 years, based on our ACT profile.

    2. Dr. McNulty provided us the following tid-bits, 1. Academic improvement has been driven by reasonable class size.  However, the lynch pin to success is the interpersonal relation of student to teacher, not the number of children. 2. Schools provide tutoring for student in need.  Look at our Title I, Math Shack, aid support, ZAP, peer tutoring, high school teachers meeting students before and after school. 3. Inclusion classes for student with needs. 4. OISM models in place (L-B had one of first grants to institute this model, thanks to Brian). 5. The next “break-through” might well be deeper analysis of student data and creating more learning opportunities (wait a second, L-B is doing the “next break-through” today).  This involves more administrative involvement.

    This became a central point of the presentation, “If district leaders do not articulate a coherent version of good instruction, they will cede instructional leadership either to individual schools or outside providers, or some unmanageable combination of the two.  The consequences of this will be uniform mediocrity at worst, and far flung variation at best”.

  1. I know there is quite a bit of “stress” involved in the school facilities process, due to the tight timelines imposed on us by the Ohio Facilities Commission.  My concern is that this opportunity we’ve been provided needs to have full consideration.  Upon speaking with the planning group, what happens if we delay one year in taking action?  I looked at one of the proposed “solutions”, for cost analysis only, and saw a total project cost of $23,841,911 which ended up being split out at 48% state share and 52% local.  Assuming a one percent shift in cost to us, which would end up being 47% state, and 53% local, plus an increase in construction cost of 6% (the last 5 year average is 7% per year), the total cost of the 23 million dollar project escalates to $25,272,425 and the local share increases to $1,063,950.  This is the reason we need to study this fully, yet quickly.  If we don’t act, and assuming minimal changes in funding percentages and construction cost increases, we’re increasing our local share by over a million dollars per year.
  2. In late summer, the state legislature passed a law requiring a public records policy effective in September.  We already have a policy in place, but the legislature ruled that we had to institute their policy.  We received the enclosed policy from NEOLA late September asking that we adopt this immediately.  Therefore, in a single motion, I’ll be asking that you suspend for this policy only, the rules, and then implement this policy, thereby rescinding our existing policy.  Also, the board must appoint someone for records training by resolution, per the advice of our policy writers.  At the OSBA Capital Conference on Monday November 12, there is a required training session I could attend.  So feel free to appoint the superintendent for records training, and I’ll then be able to train Dawn as we make sure we comply with this new law.  (Item I)
  3. We just ran our latest expenditure flow model for FY07.  Over the prior year, on a per pupil basis, our administrative costs increased 2.8%, and our instructional costs increased 7.8%.  Our overall per pupil costs increased from $7616 per pupil to $8170 per pupil, a 7.3% increase for the 2006-07 school year.
  4. I was asked at attend a Tech Prep meeting on October 9.  Currently, we are part of a 24 county area, which is going to become an eight county area, sharing the geographical lines of Ohio’s Economic Development areas.  We’re being re-aligned to be part of a group that consists of Paulding, Putnam, Hancock, Van Wert, Mercer, Allen, Auglaize, and Hardin Counties.  The concept of vocational education is being set aside, and there is a goal of having 80% of future tech prep students, enrolled in post secondary education.  Frankly, since we’ve evolved to our current level of academic success, this is attainable, at least for L-B’s children.

    5. Having spent the morning with career center administrators, community college representatives, and business people, there is a deep seeded concern that we’re not educating our children to the level they can be competitive internationally.

    There is still a mindset among some that change is not necessary, and we should be providing more traditional types of training, even though researchers and futurists believe this to be a dis-service to our children and communities.

    I, along with other school administrators, was asked to provide some insights as to what our student services should be in the future to provide our students opportunity and a chance for future career security.

  1. We just received a request from our FFA chapter to send representatives to the national convention in Indianapolis.  Note the enclosed description and itinerary.  (Item J)
  2. I found this article in one of my professional journals and found it interesting, especially since I thought everyone shares a common focus.  This really speaks to ethics and the importance of ethical governance.  (Item K)
  3. I attended the Ohio Grantmakers Forum held at Winebrenner on the topic of “Education Initiative Regional Conversation”, which was in part, a discussion to see how public schools could be “re-tooled”, due to their lack of performance and “inability to compete” internationally.  I found the meeting to be stimulating and we had some excellent discussions regarding what schools are accomplishing.  I brought in our research and found much more argument in the room than I ever would have thought. 

    4. I looked a bit deeper into the performance of last year’s graduates who were in attendance for 13 years of their schooling.  WE had 97 students graduate.  In the four years of high school, there were 124 students who attended LBHS.  35 of the 97 students were here for 13 years, and 82% of them are enrolled in post-secondary education.  They had an average ACT score of 24, and this mirrors the best performing local school in the area, other than the “other school” had 90% of its graduates take the ACT, and also had a 24 composite average.  Note the “Three Reports/One Purpose synopsis.  (Item L)

  1. We need to approve Ashley Hughes as a tuition student for 2007-08.  Ashley will be graduating this spring.
  2. We need to approve a contract for student transportation with an “independent” contractor to attend the Ohio School for the Blind.
  3. You’ll see approvals for extra-curricular contracts for our staff.
  4. Our speech team likes to compete on a regional basis, so they’re asking permission to attend a competition in Downer’s Grove, Illinois.  (Item M)
  5. We have a number of grants forthcoming we need to accept, as listed on the agenda.

ELEMENTARY PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Liberty-Benton Board of Education

October 15, 2007

 

1.   As of today, we have the following number of students in our elementary program:

                                                                                                   Sept. 2007

Pre-school        -    22  (1 section – ½ a.m. & ½ p.m.)             (  21)

Kindergarten    -    72 (4 sections – avg. class 18.5)                 (  74)

First Grade       -    95 (5 sections – avg. class 18.8)                 (  94)                 

Second Grade  -    75 (4 sections – avg. class 18.8)                 (  75)

Third Grade     -    92 (4 sections – avg. class 22.8)                 (  91)   

Fourth Grade   -  104 (5 sections – avg. class 20.8)                 (104)               

Fifth Grade      -    88 (4 sections – avg. class 22.3)                 (  89)   

TOTAL (K-5):     526 School Average:  20.3                           (527)               

                                     (548 with pre-school)                                         Average (20.3)

  1. PTO Wolfie’s Nuts Fundraiser kicked off this last Friday and runs through Friday, Oct. 26th for the elementary school.  Students will be selling a variety of different nuts that make great holiday gift ideas.  Thank you to Paula Lundeen and Amy Iten for being the wonderful chairs of this fundraiser for this year! This year’s school incentive:  If we exceed our sales from last year by $1500, lucky students from each grade will have an opportunity to make me into a large banana split complete with all the ingredients needed including chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and most certainly nuts!!
  1. On our scheduled 2-hour delay this past week, the elementary spent its time collaborating on our strategic imperatives and the beginning stages of developing metrics for them.  Additionally, teachers worked in teams to analyze our most recent achievement data from last May’s administration.  Having this time to collaborate and analyze these results provides powerful insight for the teachers and helps us to create action plans and goals to improve student learning through informed instructional decisions.  Thank you for the continued support of our scheduled two-hour delay days.
  1. We have begun implementation of a researched-based, reading intervention program called Voyager Passport. This intervention is designed to provide implicit, research-based instruction for some students in our targeted AYP subgroups this year.  This is one of the action items we are implementing to continue to improve student achievement for students in the subgroups of students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged.  It is incredible what the teachers have been able to do to help the students continue to improve at the elementary these past several years, especially in the age of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  We are very proud that our building met adequate yearly progress (AYP) this past year and the fact that our performance index has increased for the sixth straight year now.  Our goal is to do this again this year!
  1. Our first nine-week’s interims (midterms) went home on Friday, October 5th for the elementary school students.  It’s hard to believe we are already more than halfway through the first grading period.  Overall, the students appear to be off to a great start!
  1. Congratulations to Brooke Daugherty (Gold Medal), Genna Zachrich (Trophy & Awards), and Madi Greiner (Sorella Bridal), all 5th grade students, for participating and being named winners in the Courier’s Design an Ad Contest this year! We are very proud of these girls, as well as the hundreds of students that participate in numerous contests throughout the year at L-B!  Thank you to Mrs. Karen Walker, our gifted teacher, for promoting and coordinating all the contests in our building throughout the year as well!
  1. We have 20 students participating in our 5th grade French Club this year.  The French Club is a 7-week after school program where students participate to learn more about French as a language.  Students get practice learning to speak some words, numbers, songs, and much more in French.  Thank you to Mrs. Susan Bowers, our high school French teacher for being the advisor for this program.  We appreciate the extra opportunity provided for our students!
  1. Parent-Teacher Conferences are scheduled for the following dates and times this year:

    2. Thursday, November 15th 5:30-8:30 p.m.

    Monday, November 19th  5:30-8:30 p.m.

    Tuesday, November 20th 8:30-11:30 a.m. & 1:00-4:00 p.m.

  1. We are very excited for our Fall Carnival that is this coming Saturday (Oct. 20th) from 3:00-7:00 p.m.  There are dozens of events and games to participate in again this year, as well as lots of food, fun, and fellowship.  We will be offering shuttle bus service from the high school parking lot to the front of the elementary building again for the safety and convenience of our guests on this day.  PTO hopes you have an opportunity to stop by and visit, have a snack, or even play a couple games!

 

Upcoming Elementary Events:

            Oct. 16                         2nd Grade Fieldtrip to see Charlotte’s Web at the Franciscan Center (Lourde’s College)

            Oct. 20             Fall Carnival 3:00-7:00 p.m.

            Oct. 23             Title I Parent Meeting 6:30 p.m. (pizza served)

            Oct. 26             PTO Wolfie’s Fundraiser ends today

                                    Fall Parties in Elem. Classrooms 2:30 p.m.

            Nov. 2             End of the 1st Grading Period – progress reports (grade cards) go home with students

Gr.1-5 on Nov. 12th

            Nov. 7             3rd Grade Fieldtrip to Toledo Art Museum

                                    5th Grade “Accounting Day”

            Nov. 12                       PTO Meeting 7:00 p.m.

            Nov. 13                       PPTO Family Movie Night 7:00 p.m.

MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Liberty-Benton Board of Education

October 15, 2007

6:00 p.m.

 

1) Camp Storer:  Once again, our students had a wonderful experience at YMCA Camp Storer in Jackson, Michigan.  I would like to thank the Board of Education and the Liberty-Benton PTO for their support of the trip in making this possible.  I spent the day at the Camp with the students on Tuesday, October 9, and Wednesday October 10, 2007.  The students

The counselors at the camp approached me many times with compliments regarding our students.  Once again, Liberty-Benton Middle School set a record for meals with zero food waste (that is ZERO—not bad for 103 kids plus chaperones).  In recognition for this outstanding achievement, our school’s name will adorn the wall in the cafeteria.  I am so proud of our kids!  I would also like to thank the following parents that volunteered as cabin leaders for the week.  The cabin leaders stay with the students in their cabins and tour the various activities with them.  It is a challenging but rewarding job, and the feedback I received from them on their return was overwhelmingly positive. 

Camp Storer Cabin Leaders

Gary Schroeder

Dave Whikehart

Brent Lauer

Jeff Schroeder

Dale Peverly

Mike VanDenEynde

Dawn Williamson

Kim Cook

Mychelle Dukes

Tami Karhoff

Becky Patrick

Julie McIntosh

2) Fall Athletes Recognized: We will be having a pep rally to recognize the accomplishments of our fall athletes on Thursday, October 18, 2007 around 1:45 p.m. in the gym.  Members of the varsity football team will be on hand to show their support for our junior high squad (6-1) as they take on the Hardin Northern on the road at 5:00 p.m. 

 

3) PTO Magazine Sales Fundraiser a Success: September 14th -October 3rd students at the middle school participated in a magazine fund raiser for the PTO.  I would like to thank the students, staff, parents, PTO, and community for another successful magazine sale.  The students had three days to turn in their sales, and our sales were definitely down after the second turn in.  Desperate times call for desperate measures and so we sweetened the prize pot.  Because we reached our sales goal of $20,000.00 in sales, I will have to dress in a cheerleader outfit and lead the school in a cheer from the rooftop one day this week.  Because we exceeded our extra sales goal of $25,000.00 in sales, I agreed to be smothered in maple syrup and then feathered during the pep assembly.  Our total gross sales were $28,000.00  Again, thanks to Mychelle Dukes and Tami Karhoff for chairing the sale and to the kids and the community for their efforts and support. 

Students that sold 6 or more magazines will get to play on the Ohio Air Extreme inflatables on October 18, 2007.  Students that sold 13 or more will get to go on a stretch Hummer ride and pizza lunch at Stevi-B’s on October 26, 2007. 

 

4) Two Hour Collaboration Day: Developing our Metrics for Academic Excellence and Culture: I received staff input on developing our metrics for the strategic imperatives assigned to the principals per our September BOE meting.  The staff worked on their own, in small groups, and then together as a whole to help develop the metrics for our Strategic Plan. 

 

5)  Fall Sports Awards Assembly:  Our fall sports wards assembly will be Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. in the gym.  This is a change from the original date of October 25, 2007 due to a conflict with Trick-or-Treat night. 

 

6) Midterms:  Interim reports were sent home on October 5th with the students.  Other midterm dates are:

Qtr. 2 – December 7

Qtr. 3 – February 22

Qtr. 4 – May 2

 

7) Parent-Teacher Conferences:  Parent teacher conferences have been changed this in order to provide parents with three dates to choose from. The following are the scheduled conference times:

Thursday, November 15 @ 5:30-8:30

Monday, November 19  @ 5:30-8:30

Tuesday, November 20 @  8:30-11:30 and 1:00-4:00

 

8) Junior National Honors Society: There will be 20 Liberty-Benton Middle School students inducted into the National Junior Honor Society on Tuesday, October 23, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. at Arcadia.  Mrs. Amy Schroeder, our NJHS Advisor and I will be recognizing some of our finest kids on this evening. 

9) OASSA Fall Conference:  I will be attending the OASSA Fall Conference in Columbus, Ohio October 14-16 with Ben Gerkin and Brenda Frankart.  The OASSA has another great series of speakers and topics lined up for the conference this fall.  I will be attending sessions on the following topics:

·         - Lessons Learned from Dealing with School Crisis

·         - Value Added Basics

·         - Personal Safety and Health

·         - Finances and Levy Strategies

·         - Legislative Update

 

10) Fall Carnival:  The fall carnival will soon be here on Saturday, October 20 from 3:00-7:00 p.m. There will be over 25 different events to enjoy as well as plenty of great food including walking tacos, and hot dogs and burgers.  Ohio Air Extreme

 

Upcoming Dates:

 

October 18                  Ohio Air Extreme Reward

October 23                  National Junior Honor Society Ceremony @ Arcadia 7:00 p.m.
October 25                  Picture re-takes 12:45 p.m.

October 26                  Limo ride/pizza luncheon reward

November 2                End of the first 9 weeks

November 15              Parent-teacher conferences 5:30-8:30

November 19              Parent-teacher conferences 5:30-8:30

November 20              Parent-teacher conferences 8:30-11:30 and 1:00-4:00

November 22              Thanksgiving Break

November 26              SSchool resumes

HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Liberty-Benton Board of Education

October 15, 2007

6:00 P.M.

 

1.)Leadership Day -  Our student Leadership Day was awesome!  It was held on Tuesday, October 9th, and it was a huge success.  Our featured speaker, America’s Fun Fitness Coach, Jim Steffen, did a fabulous job of getting everyone excited for the day.  Our student leaders did an outstanding job of keeping everyone involved and included.  I greatly thank the Liberty-Benton Academic Boosters and PTO for their financial support of this program as I truly believe this is a very valuable program for our entire school.  Our theme for the year is a Western theme of “Round ‘Em Up And Pay It Forward.”

2.)    Congratulations to our Fall Sports -  Our golfers are headed to the State meet.  The volleyball team, the girls’ soccer team, and the boys’ soccer team have all secured league titles!  Football, cross country, volleyball, and soccer is still going strong at the moment.  It looks like this year could be one of many pep rallies!  Such a great problem to have!  It was also very exciting to have the Channel 44 Sports Report here to cover our golf pep rally and our “Volley For The Cure” volleyball game!  Hopefully, the positive seasons continue on for a while…  Start spreading the word that Channel 44 will be tailgating here at LBHS on October 19th from 5:30-7:00.  Go, Eagles!!!

3.)    Homecoming & Spirit Week -  I would like to thank our student council and cheerleaders for planning such a nice Homecoming Spirit Week, powderpuff game, Homecoming Court ceremony, pep rally, and dance.  It makes for a busy week!  A special congratulations to the entire Homecoming Court and their families, and to our Queen Leanna Elbin and our King Michael Shivers.

4.)    Zach Morgan Sadly Missed -  I thank the Morgan family, the staff and students, counselors from the high schools around Hancock County, and numerous pastors and church officials for all of the condolences and positive support that we received here at Liberty-Benton High School during our Homecoming Week.  Clearly, Zach Morgan was an amazing young man, a strong academic student, a fine athlete, and an even better human being who cared about others, the community, and service in general.  He has been missed each and every day, and many school groups have nicely completed projects to honor his memory.  Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with Dana, Kathy, and Cory Morgan.

5.)    Midterms -  Our first quarter midterms were mailed home on October 5th along with the school fee notices.

6.)    OASSA Fall Conference -  I will be attending the annual Fall principals’ conference in Columbus on October 14-16, 2007.

7.)    State Golf -  I will be attending the state golf tournament in Columbus to support our team and supervise our LBHS students on October 12-13, 2007.

8.)    National Honor Society -  We have 29 students being inducted into the Hancock County Chapter of the National Honor Society at Van Buren High School on November 5th at 7:30 p.m.

9.)    Parent-Teacher Conferences -  We are looking forward to our high school parents attending our annual parent-teacher conferences.  This year we are again following a schedule of spreading the conferences over a three-day period.

November 15               5:30-8:30

November 19               5:30-8:30

November 20               8:30-4:30

10.)   Summer Ohio Graduation Test Results -  We had 16 students participate in the summer intervention program and attempt 22 total sections of the OGT this summer.  They successfully passed 11 of these testing sections.  With these results, 6 juniors and 2 seniors have now passed all of their remaining sections required to graduate.  We currently only have 1 senior who is required to pass.  The individual is still working to pass 2 areas, math and science.  Tutoring is being provided to the individual.

11.)   Collaboration Day on October 11th -  Our curriculum extension teachers, Justin Shank, Martha Boyd, Amy Schroeder, and Kelley Foltz, did a terrific job of meeting with their departments and working to improve students’ testing scores, performance index scores, and AYP status.  We are excited to see our results with the upcoming March test as we have some terrific plans in place for improvement.

12.)     Upcoming Events:

October 15      ACT Review, 7:00-9:30

October 17      PSAT Test – Juniors

October 20      LB PTO Carnival, 3:00-7:00
October 22      ACT Review, 7:00-9:30
October 24      School Picture Day
November 2    End of First Nine Weeks
November 5    ASVAB Testing – Juniors
November 5    National Honor Society Induction @ Van Buren, 7:30
November 6    PLAN Test – Sophomores
November 10  Eagle Update Deadline
November 14  Millstream Presentation – Sophomores
November 14  Picture Retakes
November 15  Academic Booster Meeting, 6:30
November 15  Parent-Teacher Conferences, 5:30-8:30
November 19  Parent-Teacher Conferences, 5:30-8:30
November 20  Parent-Teacher Conferences, 8:30-4:00