Alva Review-Courier -

“Overall it’s a good report,” concluded Pat Carroll, of Chas W. Carroll PA, about the 2019-2020 audit for Alva Public Schools. He spoke via Zoom to the Alva Board of Education during Monday’s meeting.

Board members were provided with a written copy of the audit before the meeting so they could study it. Carroll gave a quick overview of each section of the report. He said there were no material misstatements. Only one deficiency was mentioned which Carroll described as a coding error.

He said the accounting for the activity funds was “much improved” over last year. On the previous audit, there were problems involving activity revenue not being deposited the day it was received. There were also issues last year with requisitions not being obtained before purchases were made.

Carroll was also complimentary of the cooperation of the school staff. “Every time we’ve talked to the people there, they’ve been receptive,” he said.

Board members present for the meeting were Jane McDermott, Tiffany Slater, Karen Koehn, Larry Parker and Shane Hansen.

Superintendent’s Report

Superintendent Tim Argo reported one resignation and two retirements among the staff. Lisa Vermillion, the high school attendance clerk, is resigning to take another job. Pam Gale, who serves as middle school attendance clerk, will split her time between the two schools.

Steve Gale is retiring after 36 years of teaching with the Alva school system. “We appreciate his dedication to our district and our students,” said Argo.

Kindergarten teacher Georgianna Gagnon is also retiring. She was worked for the Alva schools for 21 years. “We are very thankful for her service,” the superintendent said. “As a parent who has had her teach my kids, she’s just an outstanding person, and she will be dearly missed.”

Argo told the board to watch the Oklahoma State Department of Education Facebook page Thursday, March 4, at 10 a.m. for the announcement of the Teacher of the Year. Washington School teacher Krista Starbuck is a finalist.

There are many bills involving education being considered in the legislature. Argo told the board that two, one in the House and one in the Senate, deal with student transfers. “The appeal process with these transfers in many of these bills, and these two in particular, take these to the state board of education. We feel like local control is very important and the senate bill looks at school setting capacity to determine whether or not they accept transfers. All of these take effect next school year.”

Argo expressed concern about House Bill 2078 which would change the funding formula from three years to one year. “The reason why our administrative group is opposed to this bill is three-year funding allows us time to plan and budget. Enrollment, as we know, fluctuates. And we’ve seen lots of fluctuation with Covid. So moving that to one year really makes administration hard-pressed to make budget decisions. That bill is moving along. It has cleared the House and is moving toward the Senate. There’s a lot of concern.

“In the budgeting decisions of the district, it’s important that we have some leeway to plan for the future. Limiting or reducing that amount to one year is going to make it very difficult for us.”

Dropout Report

“I’m happy to report we had zero dropouts for the ’19-’20 academic year nor have we had any for this school year,” High School Principal Cory Smith told the board. A student who either graduates or enrolls in another school is not considered a dropout. The state follows a “cohort” or class for five years and if a school can’t show a student has enrolled elsewhere, it counts against the school’s annual report card grade.

Smith said if a student transfers to another school in Oklahoma, it’s no problem. The difficulty comes if the student goes to school in another state or they enroll in a GED school, “That’s when we have to do research and provide that documentation to the state,” he said. So far ten students have been removed from the dropout list by office staff (Terry Smithey and Lisa Vermillion) reaching out to people they know to find out where the students went.

When the documentation is uploaded to the state, those students are removed from the dropout list which helps Alva’s report card in the long run. “That’s something we’re going to keep doing,” said Smith.

Extra Duty Assignments

Argo reported revisions to the extra duty assignments. Brandon Ellis who has been an assistant football coach at the middle school will serve as head boys track coach.

The high school will have a slow pitch softball season this spring. Megan Stratton and Coach Taylor will be handling those coaching duties.

Out of State Travel

The board approved an out of state travel request for the Alva Middle School to participate in track meets at South Barber High School on April 15 and at Medicine Lodge High School on April 20.

Financials

Supt. Argo went over financial reports with the board members. “We’ve collected $1 million less than last year and spent $1 million less,” he reported. Argo praised administrators and teachers for being mindful of expenses.

Although gross production tax collections are still down, recent months are showing some increase. Looking at futures, Argo said, there is some indication that will continue to improve. He said the district relies heavily on revenue from gross production tax from oil and gas.

With the good comments from Pat Carroll on the audit report, Argo said he wanted to thank Ladonna Durkee for her work on school activity reports. He said Durkee relies heavily on the administrators in making those reports since she’s not in the buildings. He said Durkee is “a real asset for our office.”

In the child nutrition report, Argo presented figures showing how many students are utilizing the school breakfast and lunch service. He said those numbers continue to improve, especially at the high school where students have the opportunity for a grab-and-go breakfast in the mornings. In August the schools served 6,378 lunches compared to 9,027 in February. Breakfast numbers increased from 2,456 in August to 4,073 in February.

Looking at purchase orders in the general fund, Argo said some federal funds will be used to replenish the middle school Chromebooks. The school will pay for the laptops and then be reimbursed. Several repairs are being made to activity buses. Argo said all the buses are expected to be running by Wednesday (March 3).

A couple of HVAC units had to be repaired at the middle school when students came back after time off during the sub-zero temperatures.

In the child nutrition fund, there were repairs to an oven and a dryer at the middle school. A walk-in freezer at the high school also required some repair work.

Executive Session

At the end of the meeting, the board entered executive session to conduct the ongoing evaluation of the superintendent.

Special Meeting Wednesday

A special meeting of the Alva School Board has been scheduled for today (March 3) at 5 p.m. The only item on the agenda is possible board action to approve an offer of employment to an applicant as Alva High School Head Football Coach for the next school year.