Alva Review-Courier -

WOODWARD, Okla. – The Woodward Board of Education met on Monday evening and passed a series of budget revisions aimed at providing teachers not only the raises recently passed in the Oklahoma legislature, but even more of an increase locally.

“You also see on your agenda, items J, K and L, the salary scales … these are all a direct result of legislation that was passed in the spring. As you know by now that the effort to repeal those has died and gone by the wayside and so everyone is confident that this is locked in and this is what we are doing,” said Superintendent Kyle Reynolds.

And so after the measure passed, Woodward School District administrators along with Reynolds began working on a plan that could use the state mandated increases strategically to create more of a draw for not only certified staff, but also support staff.

In its measure, the state mandated that each support staff, including bus drivers, paraprofessionals, cafeteria staff and others, get a $1,250 per year raise across the board.

According to Reynolds, once administrators did the math and figured the dollar amount at an hourly rate, it added up to about a 60 cent raise.

For that reason, the decision was made to recommend a $1.20 cent per hour across the board raise for support staff who work for Woodward Public Schools.

“Let's face it, we do not have support employees knocking our doors down to come to work for us. We hope this makes us more competitive,” Reynolds said. “We thought that was a fair and much more equitable way of going about it. Yes, it exposes the district to several thousand dollars that we are not going to see in sate aid to cover the extra over the top of the 12-month employees. But it’s the right thing to do.”

On Monday night, Woodward School Board members also approved a plan that would not only pay the increase salary of an average of $6,100 per year now required by the state for certified employees, but also would include the $1,500 stipend the district has offered for several years now.

The state mandate required only that teachers who were employed last year by a district receive the raise and the stipend. New teachers could be paid by the state required minimum salary schedule.

“Again, what’s that going to do for morale,” Reynolds said. “How is that fair when you pit employees one against the other and say, ‘Well, you should have been here last year. We’re all getting an extra $1,500.' We just didn’t feel that was the right thing to do. So we bring you a recommendation tonight with that new single certified salary schedule that is the state minimum plus $1,500 as we have done for several years now.”

Woodward Board of Education members also approved the contract with Omni Media Group, a contract that has not changed from last year to this year, for radio broadcasting of sports on Z-92 radio station.

Omni Media Group owner J. Douglas Williams was present and discussed the increasing number of streaming options available now for the broadcasting of Woodward sporting events.

He also encouraged school board members to allow students who are participating in an internship program through the radio station, to allow students, with parental permission, to travel and work at broadcasting away games and the sporting events at other schools.

“Students will be able to do a lot more creative things,” Williams said. “It’s hard for us to put our arms around this because the communications industry is changing so rapidly. The school system put some restraints on us to the fact that it wasn’t very anxious for us to use kids or young students in doing games that weren’t associated with Woodward High School. But that limits their ability to train.”

According to Williams, broadcasting is a field that is open to young students and this is a time when they learn the skills very quickly.

“I think it is a wonderful opportunity for my group to interact with young people,” he said.

Board members also had a chance to hear from a very enthusiastic group of student members of the FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America) Parliamentary Procedure Team.

According to their instructor Tonya Quinby, the student members of this special organization give up their lunch hours to come in and practice parliamentary procedure - the body of rules and customs that govern meetings and other operations of clubs and legislative bodies.

The team recently returned from the 2018 FCCLA National Leadership Conference, which was held in Atlanta, Georgia. Woodward’s Parliamentary team won their division and were among the top three in the United States – a special honor reserved for the best of the best.

Brittany Berry, president of the club, explained to school board members how the competition works, for teams competing in the art of parliamentary procedure.

“Before we go in and compete, we never see what our motions are. We get our topics and we have to try and come up with: Okay, what can we do with this? And we only get 15 minutes to do it,” Berry said. “So then we go in there and we make motions and debate and vote. And it is so cool.”

According to member Jennifer Borunda, the experience was one of the most exciting and engaging things she has ever done.

“It’s just like something we’ve all learned so much out of,” Borunda said. “It is something that we have learned about more about speaking, leadership and responsibility.”

Club member Allison Brock said the experience not only helps her with public speaking but also makes her think more before she speaks in general.

“We practice every day for lunch and I’d really rather hang out with them,” Brock said.