Updates for the week 3/29/2013

The 2013-14 budget was approved at the school board meeting on Monday.  Thank you to the Finance Committee and the Board of Directors for their due diligence to the budget. Going over all the projections and asking the challenging but necessary questions can be tedious, and we greatly appreciate all your effort.  The most exciting development from the budget approval is yet another big technology upgrade at Assumption!  We have succeeded in budgeting 1:1 computers for our sophomore and freshmen students, meaning every student will now be given a laptop to use for the entire school year, an expansion of an already successful program which has laptops in the hands of all of our junior and senior students for the current year.  

Other highlights from next year’s budget include:

·        459 students (up from 450 from the current year – we are graduating 93 seniors and expect 125 freshmen)

·        Collection of computer fees from four grade levels, opposed to the current  two

·        Removal of concessions expense and revenue as Booster Club will now be responsible for concessions

·        Daycare revenue of $350,000

·        3% increase to teacher base salary, resulting in a $29,249 base

·        Increase of incremental base to match teaching base

·        Addition of a full-time math teacher

·        Increase in budget for computer consultant

·        Bus purchase

·        Higher FICA and benefit costs

·        Higher day care costs resulting from additional increase in children  and revenue

·        Decrease in interest expense due to early settlement of bond issue

 The Assumption Foundation continues on with the Embracing our Future 2.0 Campaign.  A special thanks to all those who have taken time out of their busy schedules to meet with me, and who have pledged to support our Scott County Catholic Schools. I will take some time to explain the Family Tuition Plan and the current state of the EOF campaign at the next Board meeting.

This week I presented a SCRA grant for Phase I of a seat replacement project for the auditorium.  When the auditorium was constructed in 1958, the seats selected were per industry standards for that era. Because our current seats conform to dated industry standards, they can sometimes make for an uncomfortable viewing experience, and we would like to alleviate that issue!  

I had the opportunity to participate in the teacher retreat with Fr. Tom Allendar on Friday morning. This was a great experience, and provided some perspective and refocus on where our efforts should be focused in Catholic Schools.  Fr. Tom will be giving a presentation to anyone who is interested on Monday @ 7:00 pm in the auditorium.  Please help us spread the word. 

Have a great weekend!

Weekly Update 3/15/2013

Let me begin by saying congratulations to Leslie, Melanie, Jessica, the Assumption Knight Players, and everyone else involved in the spring musical, Camelot.  They put on  a wonderful performance last night - our performing arts students consistently do an incredible job..  I am amazed every year at the broad range of talent we have at Assumption..  If you haven’t had the chance to attend an AHS play or musical in the last few years, I encourage you to attend either Friday night at 7:00 pm, or Saturday at 1:30 pm or 7:00 pm in Sunderbruch Auditorium.

Speaking of fine arts and our auditorium, we have begun exploring the options for replacing some of the seating in the auditorium.  This project has been discussed for several years, and we’re looking forward to finding out what a project like this would entail.  

Much of this week was spent on budget preparation for the Finance Committee meeting, to be held next Friday, and our Board meeting on the 25^th.  Once again, Carey has done a tremendous job putting together all of the information we need to make educated decisions on our budget.  There are some exciting things coming up that will have an impact on education next year.  It should make for a great Board meeting on the 25^th.

The Scott County Catholic Schools Advisory Board met Monday We discussed the AEA’s plan for analyzing their internet services.  Kevin Murphy, our tech consultant, and I will be on the committee representing our Catholic schools.  We also talked about School Advocacy days in Des Moines, the Iowa education reform, teacher salaries and retention, and pre-school funding.

The Scott Principal Meeting was held Tuesday, and while the agenda was rather light, we had some great discussion.  Items discussed included Algebra testing, ITBS item analysis, and K-12 marketing initiatives.

We received a grant to place an AED (automated external defibrillator ) machine at AHS, and we are waiting on information for training of our teachers.

Big news on the daycare front!  We had our certification visit this week form DHS and passed with flying colors.  Congrats and thanks to Jessica Billings at the daycare for all of her hard work to make sure everything is up to code.  Our compliance official, Heidi, commended Jessica for everything she has done to make our daycare successful.  

If you are traveling next week enjoy the break, if not feel free to stop by the Business Office and say hello.

Have a great weekend!

Weekly Update 3/1/2013

It seems like more time has been spent traveling back and forth from Des Moines this week than anything else, but what a great problem to have!  It continues tonight with a trip up to Des Moines to watch our girls’ basketball team compete for a third straight state championship.  Good luck ladies!

The trips don’t stop next week with another journey to Des Moines Tuesday as our boys compete in their first round game, and again to State Capitol on Wednesday for the Education Celebration, where students will speak with legislators about the benefits of Catholic education.  These certainly are busy times for Assumption parents, students, employees and supporters!

We received some questions regarding our decision to send a fan bus to the game last Tuesday with the potential for challenging weather.  I want to assure everyone that administration spent a significant amount of time discussing the pros and cons of both canceling and sending the fan buses, and in the end we agreed that sending a charter bus with an experienced driver who has a lot of was the best choice, and Bridget, Wade, and I were in constant contact with each other about the road conditions.  Luckily the weather behaved.  

The one problem we did run into had little to do with weather and everything to do with chance.  The bus carrying our band had radiator problems en route and was forced to stop.  We made the decision to have a bus from Iowa City take the students back to Davenport due to time constraints.  I am very sorry that our band didn’t get a chance to perform at the state tournament. 

We began the budget process and Carey has completed our initial estimates on revenue.  There are always many decisions to be made and tweaks to consider as we move through this essential process.  I look forward to discussing this at the next board meeting on March 25, 2013.

On the development side, the annual appeal is progressing well and we have been very pleased with the response.  Susie is exploring some ways to improve on the already successful April Knight celebration, and Liz and Susie will be attending a philanthropic planning conference next week to see if we can pick up any new ideas that might be applicable to our development process. 

I’ve been doing some research on school bus transportation in Iowa, which has turned up a lot of interesting information on best practices used to keep fleets running as well as vehicle purchasing plans.  One surprising fact is the average age of a school bus in Iowa is 12 years old.  For those of you who are interested, our buses were manufactured in 2004 and 2007.  When I talked to the state they said there is still one 1978 bus and a few 1979 buses still in operation in Iowa.

Hope to see all of you sometime this weekend whether it is in Des Moines or at the boys send off on Sunday.

Have a great weekend!