Weekly Update 9/13/2013

Just a reminder - the Board will meet on Monday.  This is an important meeting as we will have our first readings of the 500 and 600 series policies, which are next up in the 3 year review rotation. This will be the first reading so Board members have the opportunity to review the policies before we vote on any changes during next month’s meeting.  We will also vote on the amended budget that was approved by the Finance Committee on Friday.  We will spend time reviewing the changes, but things look fiscally solid for the current year. 

Another item we will discuss during Monday’s budget presentation is the implementation of a target analytics strategy for our development software.  This program will help us obtain better information from the 12,000+ records we have our systems. 

The Scott County Catholic Schools Advisory Board met on Monday.  Discussion items included the plans for Diocesan education strategic planning, the impacts of the current teacher leadership compensation proposal by the DE, marketing strategies, tuition models, and upcoming Board training for the Scott County schools.

The Scott County K12 Marketing Committee met this week.  Agenda items included: e-newsletter, bulletin inserts, Catholic Schools Week, and marketing funds balance. We also spent time discussing the Teddy Bear program for newly baptized children, as well as ways for relators to help market our schools.

On the facilities side of things we had some of our floors refinished this week and spent time discussing the stair system that will need to be installed in order to finish off the top floor of the daycare for student use.  We also looked into Dewitt Community School’s newly installed heating and cooling. It is an interesting system which we may consider for future heating and cooling needs.

I filled in as director of transportation this week due to our current director’s vacation.  Of course the heat wreaked some havoc with cancelations and changes in scheduling.  It also didn’t help that we had a bus blow an oil line on Monday, that couldn’t be fixed until Thursday.  Luckily, everything worked out well and we everyone got where they needed to be.  Special thanks to all the drivers who put up with the “rookie” director! Have a great weekend, and I’ll see everyone Monday.

Weekly Update 9/6/2013

Good luck to our volleyball and football teams in their competitions tonight and tomorrow.

Even though it has been a short week a lot has been accomplished. A couple of updates:

The daycare renovation project continues, and we had carpets cleaned in several daycare areas. We are exploring some updates to kitchen equipment and weighing out the repair vs. buy options. This was also the week for our semiannual bus inspections and everything went well.  

We have finalized a meeting with Blackbaud’s Target Analytics team. This group, which manufactures our development software, will help us to explore some ways to potentially enhance their software and make us more efficient in our utilization.  

I attended the AEA 9 Superintendents meeting on Thursday. The majority of the time was spent reviewing new legislation for this year with Iowa Department of Education officials. The two main areas of focus were teacher compensation and No Child Left Behind.  There seemed to be a lot of questions regarding the Teacher Leadership and Compensation system that is being implemented in the state. If you are interested, I encourage you to check it out here.  Our Scott County Catholic schools will need to keep a close eye on how this program develops as it could have an impact on the expectation of pay of teachers throughout the state.  

No Child Left Behind was another area of concern as Iowa has been rejected for a NCLB waiver. It remains to be seen what exactly this means for Iowa schools. If you remember back to when the legislation was passed, 2014 was kind of the magic year. All students in the nation were supposed to be proficient in 2014.  Of course, that won’t occur. It remains to be seen what will happen as a result.

We had an Investment Committee meeting Thursday, and there was a lot of great discussion.  This group will be looking over our investment policy to see if there needs to be any changes made.  

Tomorrow I will be here bright and early to open for the locker installers, as our dramatic increase in enrollment lead to a shortage of lockers.  I want to thank those students who have used the old lockers for these first couple of weeks.  Barring any complications, we should have all of them in nice new lockers no later than Tuesday. 

Weekly Update 8/30/2013

With all of our fall sports teams in full swing, the cheer clinic for grade school students, pep rally Booster club cookout, and football game on Friday, it is certainly a busy week to be a Knight.  A couple of highlights from the rest of the week:

I took the Junior Rotarians to their first Rotary meeting of the year.  Each group of Junior Rotarians attends three Rotary meetings where they are able to network with people in the community and hear speeches  on many different topics.  After they have attended three meetings, a new group rotates in.  All senior students have the opportunity to apply for the Rotary scholarships.

I had a great opportunity on Wednesday to speak to the attendees at the Fr. Martin Golf Outing Dinner.  While golf during the day was especially warm, I am proud to announce that the group of Murphy, Barrer, Jones, and Craig completed every hole.  We will not divulge our score for confidentiality reasons, but I will say it wasn’t good. During my speech at the dinner that night, I made sure to highlight the importance of this group’s generosity to the families of Scott County.  The Fr. Martin fund does a tremendous job helping students with tuition when their family is faced with a financial struggle.  

AS part of the K12 marketing campaign we were able to supply OLV/JFK with 150 teddy bears for the newly baptized. 

Demolition continues on the upstairs of the daycare.  This is our large remodel project for the fall and will hopefully be completed by the end of the school year.  As with all our projects, we will keep the timeline flexible because I am sure that something will come up.

The Assumption and JFK/OLV lost a great man this week as Deacon Paul Hittner passed away.  Deacon Paul and his wife, Mary, sent their seven children through Assumption High School and Deacon Paul was well respected and influential member of OLV parish who touched many lives.  It was   great to hear stories of the man that I mostly knew of as “my friend Chris’s dad” at the vigil on Thursday night. 

Have a great three day weekend and hope to see all of you tonight!