OLMC School Board Meeting Minutes
September 24, 2020
Members Present: Jason Swann, Leigh Gusta, Melissa Kramer, Angela Holmes, Liz Issler, Barry Vesciglio, Marlyn Cairatti, Mary Bondioli
1. Opening Prayer
Leigh called the meeting to order at 6:03 and led the board in prayer.
2. Approval of August Minutes
Liz made a motion to approve the August minutes, and Mary seconded. All were in favor.
3. Pastor’s Report: Father Mark Reyling
Father couldn’t be at the meeting due to First Reconciliation for last year’s second graders. Mr. Swann reported that Cabrini was now up and running, and offices have been established there. Father Mark has office hours during the day in Cabrini, and office hours in the Rectory in the evenings for pastoral issues. Groups will need to call Cabrini Hall to schedule meetings.
4. Principal’s Report
Update on School
School is still going well; we are closing out our 7th week. Lots of diligence and focus has been occurring, but we need to continue the diligence and cannot be complacent. Kids and teachers alike are doing their parts to follow COVID rules throughout the day. The Bishop visited Tuesday this week; he was amazing to meet and interact with. He asked how he could help to make the school better, which was extremely kind. He is visiting schools all over the Diocese right now. He had Mass with the junior high, and was able to touch base with each classroom.
October 9 will be the “dunk tank” for OLMC’s Fall Festival. Mr. Swann will be sitting in the tank, and kids will have the opportunity to “dunk” him for a fundraiser.
Father Mark is fitting right in at the school. Each class has an “Ask Fr. Mark” box so he can answer questions. Hopefully he will be able to start teaching some religion classes soon. He is continually interacting with the kids.
Enrollment Report to Date, Discussion on prospective families
The Board received an updated enrollment count. We are at 247 including remote learners. We have only 9 remote learners left; 3 have recently come back to in-person learning. We have approximately 20 more that would like to enroll, but our space is limited. Several prospective families ranging in all grades would really like to be here. However, it is difficult right now with COVID to make the decision to add new students, with the social distancing requirements and to keep a balance of students in all the classrooms. For example, PreK is fairly full each day, Kindergarten rooms are smaller, etc. Some of the families wanting to enroll seem to want to because of dissatisfaction with their local school districts’ remote learning. If they are in another parish, that parish must subsidy OLMC if their children are enrolled here. There are many complicating factors when making the decisions to accept new students; some classrooms could handle additional students more easily than others. Mr. Swann opened up discussion with the Board about considering new enrollees. Points/questions brought up included: is there a worry that the new families would be any more risk healthwise than our present families? If public schools open up, will these new families drop out of OLMC, after we have painstakingly made room in different classrooms? We have remote learners that will be coming back; will we have room for them? Do these new families share our Catholic school mission, or even if they do not, would it be a good opportunity to evangelize? It is important to look at the dynamics of the classroom, and not just the numbers. We also don’t want to imply that we are closing our doors to new people.
Mr. Swann pointed out that both PreK and Kindergartens are pretty much capped. First grade and second grade are also full. Third grade could take a couple more. The fourth grade classroom is too small to add any more. One of the fifth grades could add more, as well as Seventh and Eighth. Sixth grade also is full. He said that he would feel comfortable adding a fifth and seventh grader right now.
Suggestions from the board were that we open up invitations to the families with the fifth grader and the seventh grader, then revisit the issue next quarter to determine if situations have changed. Leigh made a motion to revisit this discussion next quarter, and Liz seconded.
School Uniform Discussion
There have been a few issues with when we allow shorts/tights vs. pants to be worn. Mr. Swann suggested that we have some kind of ruling allowing shorts until a specific date, and after that using the high temperature forecast to determine if shorts may be worn. The board agreed that from November 1 to April 1, no shorts may be worn, and tights must be worn with skirts/jumpers, unless the predicted temperature for Herrin is 80 degrees or above. An amendment will be made and added to the handbook. Other uniform issues include no logos on socks.
Monsignor Shirt 15th of Every Month
Father Mark moved this date to the 15th rather than on Mondays.
Emergency Drills for this fall semester
We are still required to do drills. Some adjustments have had to be made by the fire department and police department so that COVID restrictions may be maintained. We should have all the drills done by Thanksgiving.
Iowa Testing week of September 21
Testing is going well. Some remote learners came in for the testing, and spaces were found throughout the school for them to take the tests.
FACTS Tuition Planning
These are 3rd party tuition management systems. They handle tuition payments so that OLMC doesn’t have to, at a low yearly cost to the school. This will be a slow implementation which will be launched by the first July payment next year.
Reading and Title IEP/504 Planning
Last year, students who received services through the public school had to go to the actual location of the service based on their grade. This year, the public school has only offered speech services, and were wavering about whether they would come to OLMC or if they would do it remotely. They are now planning to begin speech services remotely in October. This involves 7 students at OLMC.
One issue Mr. Swann brought up, was how our accelerated classes are getting the services they need with the containment issues in the classrooms. In previous years, the 5th grade accelerated students would join the 6th grade class for math, the 6th grade accelerated would join the 7th grade, and so on. This year, due to COVID, the advanced math students are in the same room as the regular learners within their same grade, and the teacher must go back and forth between the groups, which requires the group that is not with the teacher to practice on their own or to watch instructional videos. At the same time, remote learners are also being zoomed in. It is very challenging for the teacher to juggle the assignments and needs of both groups at the same time. If a student gets behind in math, it is difficult to catch up. Some of our students are struggling to keep up; although grades are still good, the fear is that this won’t continue. The board did not have any solutions, other than trying to separate the classrooms somehow while keeping social distance. But we don’t have the space or staff to do this. If we break containment by mixing some of the junior high kids, we risk having to shut down classrooms, or even the school, if we have too many positive cases of COVID. We would need a part-time math teacher, who would be able to teach various levels of math, which is very difficult to find. Mr. Swann was hopeful that we can remedy this situation by next quarter. The board suggested that we put out feelers for a part-time math teacher and go from there, as well as possibly try to utilize an aide to help the math teacher with non-instructional tasks.
5. School Committee report
Kent Ingersoll reported that the committees are meeting, some using Zoom. The Fall Festival is coming up. We need more people to sign up for Bocce and the 5K; only a couple of teams have signed up for Bocce and 11 for the 5K.
6. Executive Session
Leigh requested an executive session. After discussion, the Board decided to call a Special Executive meeting to further discuss a personnel matter. Leigh will be emailing board members requesting preferences of either October 1 or October 5 @ 7:00 for this meeting.
Next regular board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 20 @ 6:00pm.
Barry motioned to adjourn at 8:51, and Angela seconded.