The Cub Reporter
The Newsletter of Big Sandy Schools
Summer 2010Calendar of Events
Board of Education Meetings
The regular meeting of the Board of Education is scheduled for the third Wednesday of each month starting at 7:00 p.m. All board meetings are open to the public.
Principal Greg Mitchell
Have a fantastic summer.
2010-11 Class Registration – We will begin registration for next school year. For those students returning to Big Sandy Schools, a draft of the 2010-11 Master Schedule and a form to enter first and second class choices will be sent home. Students are to have parent’s signature when returning the form to Mr. Thieman. In coordination with this event, we will hold a freshman orientation for 8th grade students. In this orientation, we will outline high school graduation requirements, encourage students to become actively involved in extracurricular activities, promote leadership opportunities, and stress the importance of good study habits and positive choices. If you have questions pertaining to pre-registration and/or freshman orientation, please contact Mr. Thieman.
Teacher E-mails – To communicate with your child’s teachers, type the first letter of the teacher’s first name and the teacher’s last name. Then type “@bigsandy100j.org”. For example, you can contact Tim Tucker at the following email address ttucker@bigsandy100j.org. If you have difficulties emailing your teachers, please contact the school.
Juniors should look for opportunities to be involved in the community over the summer. Colleges and scholarship committees are looking for students who are able to document community service experience. Be careful not to confuse the goal – community service is something that you do because you want to make your community better. As you complete community service projects you are able to document your service on college and scholarship applications. Remember, serving your community is not something that you do just to look good on applications.
The summer break is a great time to start organizing your portfolios in preparation for completing scholarship applications. Samples of award certificates, honors received, and community service records/logs will be useful entering the senior year.
Check out this website as you consider your college options:
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ALL SECONDARY STUDENTS:
2010-2011 COURSE REGISTRATION IS COMING!
We are working on our master schedule for the 2010-2011 school year. Pre-registration will begin in early May for each 6th – 11th grader. I will speak to each grade, starting with the juniors, and hand out scheduling forms and course descriptions. Parent approval is required on all schedules. My goal is to give each student a copy of their 2010-11 schedule before they leave for the summer break.
As always, if I can assist you and your student in any way, please call me at 541-2291. I will do my best to serve you!
We continue to go through all of our board policies, we are looking into the BEST Program possibilities, and the school’s budget has had some revamping due to the state and national economies. I have to remind myself that in spite of some of these time consuming tasks, student learning is our primary goal. Thank you parents, students, and staff for a great year! Our attendance was good this year and I believe student learning was good.
With all of the activities that will be taking place this month, I especially look forward to graduation, academic awards night, the athletic banquet, and the excitement along the way.
Big Sandy School Budget Update
We are sure that all of you are aware of the challenges that all of the school districts in Colorado are facing at this time. Due to the economic recession, the State of Colorado has significant revenue shortfalls. We have already had our state funding for this fiscal year reduced. During the 2009-2010 funding cycle, the school districts were told that we would probably lose $110 million in funding. The Big Sandy District’s portion was $58,000. We were informed that we needed to set aside the $58,104 and not spend it because there was a good possibility that the state would rescind those funds in January. The state did rescind those funds plus an additional $10,538; last school year the state rescinded $10,000. Next year’s revenue will be significantly reduced more than this year. The projected cuts are 6.35% or $260 million for next year; this amount equates to approximately $192,678 for Big Sandy School District (which is $124,036 less revenue next year in addition to the $68,642 that they will have already cut this year and will again carry over to next year) . The reduction in funding along with the increase in the district’s portion of PERA contributions is significant.
With all of this in mind, last year we trimmed our budget for our current year and have already made some decisions to make changes for the 2010-2011 school year. We are also looking ahead to the coming years. We have tried to make decisions that would least affect the quality of our students’ education, as well as retain our excellent staff. We are doing our best to not have to reduce staff or cut programs. We may be looking at moving some staff around in order to adjust to our current situation. We have built up our Capital Reserve Account the past 3 years to where we feel that we can now reduce the amount put into this Fund from the General Fund by $45,000. With a low number of expected kindergarteners next year, we plan on having one session which will take place in the morning; during the afternoon this teacher will then be teaching elementary music and secondary choir. We have eliminated one teaching position by doing so. We are looking at combining instruction with the secondary principal job and reducing the cost of this position. We have put a freeze on salaries, will be taking a timeout on purchasing athletic uniforms within the rotation, reduce some of our online classes, and reduce Christmas extras along with other possibilities. We have purchased a new math curriculum this year as our current text books were a couple of years older than our normal replacement rotation; text book purchasing is an area we are planning to delay if we can.
We are trying to be proactive instead of reactive. After trimming this year’s budget, we look to be doing well fiscally at present. With next year’s cuts made in advance of next year’s expected budget reduction in revenues, we anticipate continuing to be positioned well fiscally. We will continue to explore ways to increase revenues and cut expenses. We also continue to be involved in talking with neighboring school districts about less expensive cooperative purchases.
We welcome input from all concerned patrons. Our top priority is to provide quality student learning for our children.
BEST (Building Excellent Schools Today)
The State of Colorado’s BEST (Building Excellent Schools Today) Program is in its third cycle of a projected five cycle program. House Bill 08-1335 authorized approximately $500,000,000 in State funds to be distributed over several years. This money comes from state land trust (logging, mining, oil, gas, Colorado Lottery, interest earnings, and matching funds. During the late 1800s, land revenue was set aside for public schools. This revenue has greatly increased largely due to the oil and gas industry; this increased revenue has been put into the BEST Program to build school buildings in districts that cannot afford to address all the needs on their own. In order to receive BEST money for a building project, a school district would have to in return show the State that it is committed to this program by matching a portion of the project with passing a bond issue. By doing so, Big Sandy School District possibly could receive 75 cents or even 85 cents on the dollar of matching school district funds. The Facility Assessment Report was just released in March. This report gives Big Sandy School District a score of 92.8 which means several of our buildings are ranked very high for replacement; the main buildings rated poorly are the modulars and round pods due to the circular design, safety issues, plumbing, electrical upgrades, and etceteras. We rated by far the highest school in the area. What this means is that if we were to apply for these funds, we would have a pretty good chance of receiving them. The first step would be for us to see what the initial interest is from our patrons. If positive to continue, then the next step is to put out a RFB (Request for Bid) to develop a Master Plan. This Plan would gather much input from community members and provide the District with a plan for future building options. An application would then be written and submitted. If approved by the BEST board, then a bond election would be held; if passed, a new school building would be built the following year or existing buildings renovated. Financial numbers may look like, for example, a $10 million to $15 million building project with the tax payers contributing $2.5 million over 20 years and the State contributing the rest. If the average assessed valuation of a home owner is around $80,000 the tax rate increase would be approximately $97 a year. These numbers are very preliminary, but used in order to give you an idea. The enticing thing about this Program is that we would only be paying 25 cents to 17 cents on the dollar for a new building using the above calculations. This program is scheduled to end in another two years. For further information, please come in to see me or call me at 541-2292.
Steve Wilson, Superintendent
Big Sandy Schools
Nurseletter
Immunizations:
Music
Kari Venable
School Library News
Did you know that our school library offers your children a chance to view and read some great collections of e-books which are accessible right from your home computer? Check out TumbleBooks and TumbleReadables.
According to Tumble Weed Press, Inc., “The TumbleBookLibrary is a collection of TumbleBooks (animated, talking picture books) TumblePuzzles, and TumbleQuizzes, as well as TumbleResources for teachers. TumbleBooks are created from existing picture books which we have licensed from children's book publishers and converted to the TumbleBook format.”
“Tumble Book Library is an online collection of animated, talking picture books which teach young children the joys of reading in a format they’ll love!” Try it out by accessing the TumbleBookLibrary collection from home:
Log on to: www.TumbleBookLibrary.com
Username: bigsandy
Password: books
TumbleReadables is also a part of the subscription our school offers. Read-Alongs highlight the sentences as they are being read, turn the page automatically, and offer the ability to follow along in 3 text sizes. They also include an innovative bookmarking feature, the ability to switch to manual in order to read at your own speed, and cool color options for the skin of our new Read-Along player.
Try it out!
Log on to: www.TumbleReadables.com
Username: bigsandy
Password: login
To help provide easy access to these subscriptions, we will be adding links on our school web page, which can be located at http://bigsandy.ppboces.org/.
As always, if you have any questions about this subscription or anything other library subscriptions or materials, please call or stop by the school library.
Jeni Montague, Librarian