Mt. Pleasant School District in good financial health - state audit

MT. PLEASANT - The Mt. Pleasant Community School District is in good financial health, according to a state audit.

The Mt. Pleasant Community School District's School Board met Oct. 14 to review financial information following the state's audit of the district and to receive data about the elementary school's summer reading program.

The district's Director of Business and Finance Ed Chabal gave reports on the financial health of the school district based on the expenditures of the previous school year and noted a shrinking deficit in the district's special education supplement fund. In the 2018-19 school year, the district had a $511,027, an over $100,000 decrease from the 2017-18 school year deficit, which sat at $625,000. The business director noted that districts generally run a deficit in their special education supplement fund. Currently, Chabal is looking for ways to continue to close the gap by pursuing further reimbursements from Medicaid and government programs that will pay school districts for providing certain services.

Chabal also went over the annual transportation report and noted that average cost per mile traveled was $3.71 and average cost per student who used transportation with the district was $793.48. In the financial reports, it is noted that overall expenditure for the previous school year was $2,897,972.35 while total revenue for the district was $29,448,822.76. Chabal noted that the district is 'taking in more than it's putting out” and was doing well financially.

Lincoln Elementary School Principal Lori Lafrenz addressed the board to share the effectiveness of the summer school program, which was geared toward helping students improve their phonics, comprehension and fluency in reading, and decrease summer learning loss. This past summer is the fourth year the school has done the intensive reading summer program.

For the program, 195 students were invited to partake in the program and 98 chose to attend. Of the 98 who attended, 27 percent of the students had perfect attendance with another 35 percent of students with 90 to 99 percent attendance. The program ran for two months, from June through July.

Lafrenz reported that learning loss was decreased by half for those who attended the summer program. For kindergartners in attendance, students loss 9 letter sounds as compared to the 18 that students who did not attend the program lost. Similarly, first-graders who attended the program lost 4.2 nonsense sounds and words versus the 8 lost by first-graders who did not attend. The gap was slightly smaller for second-graders. For those who attended, their fluency passage decreased by 8.5 and those who did not attend the program decreased by 10.5. The principal also noted that had the program run through the month of August, the difference between summer learning loss would be even smaller, but that it would be difficult to ask teachers and students to stay in school for the entirety of the summer.

During her presentation, Lafrenz also pointed out changes to their summer curriculum including adding activity time to fluency and comprehension sections to help keep students engaged and excited to attend. The principal also noted that she felt students were able to gain more through the program this year because of better placement and grouping. The school used diagnostic screeners and assessments that allowed the school to determine which learning materials would best help each individual student.

Toward the end of the meeting, the board also heard from high school agriculture teacher Matthew Jones, who was seeking the approval of the board to bring three students from his class to the National FFA Convention, which will be held Oct. 29 to Nov. 2 in Indianapolis. Jones said the opportunity would allow students to 'see for themselves” the potential careers and experiences they could get by going into agriculture. Jones also noted that the trip would include industry tours as well as networking opportunities at the convention. The board unanimously approved the overnight trip request.