While much of Monday’s Dixon R-I School Board meeting focused on budget issues, board members also publicly introduced their new high school principal and reviewed numerous policy issues.
Dixon Middle School Principal Jim Brown, who coordinated the Dixon summer school program this year, reported that Dixon had an average attendance of 301 including about 100 high school students.
Dixon, unlike some surrounding districts, offered academic classes during summer school. In some cases, students took summer school classes to get ahead and some eighth-graders took their first high school class during the summer; in other cases, students who struggled during the regular school year caught up.
“We have seen over the years in middle school, kids make major turn-around in summer school,” Brown said.
Classes included government, geography, English with an emphasis on Shakespeare, freshman physical science; and two shop classes, Woods 1 and Woods 2. Dixon’s Alternative Learning Center also offered credit recovery, and less-academic classes such as physical education and driver’s education were also offered. At the middle school level, core classes and a home economics class were offered.
Superintendent Dawna Burrow said free meals were provided to anyone living in the community and Community Bank of Dixon donated $250 to cover the cost of prizes offered as incentives to spur attendance.
Burrow asked board members to review an existing policy on foreign exchange students that allows only four students in Dixon per exchange student agency, but has been interpreted to allow only four foreign exchange students in the district per year.
Burrow said foreign exchange students are beneficial because Dixon students “can learn things from them,” but admitting students from other countries also brings “a lot of red tape” and creates extra work for school counselors.
That’s become an increasing problem this year, she said.
“I have had literally almost a call a day with people trying to place foreign exchange students; I don’t know how many we would have if we said ‘yes’ to them,” Burrow said.
Board member Robert Hill said from his background as a retired Dixon High School principal, he understands the problem and sympathized with Burrow’s concerns, and also raised an additional concern about the families in Dixon with which foreign exchange students are placed.
“The other thing is the families they come to live with may not be cream of the crop,” Hill said. “We’ve had foreign exchange students before that we had to move to another family.”
Board members agreed to formally amend the policy to allow only four foreign exchange students per year, which Burrow noted would eliminate a teacher who wanted to host a student.
Hill said that teacher could be placed first on the list for next year.
Board members also agreed to specify that even if athletes have a late-night game on a school night, they won’t be excused from classes the next day.
“We don’t want to get into a situation with athletes who have a game one night and then want to sleep until 9 or 10 a.m. the next day,” Burrow said. “We haven’t had an issue with that, but we don’t want to have an issue with that, either.”
While he wasn’t yet formally on the payroll, Jerry Braschler, who most recently has been principal of Drexel High School, was introduced as the new Dixon High School principal.
Braschler fills the position that had previously been held by Paulette Crouthers, who left abruptly in February for reasons that have never been publicly disclosed. The post was filled on an interim basis until the end of the year by Martin White, a former Dixon principal who became the Richland R-IV Superintendent before retiring.
Braschler said he’s making changes to his office arrangements to improve visibility and accessibility, and also prevent accusations.
“I wanted an office that had a window in it,” Braschler said. “This is a day of lawsuits, unfortunately, so I wanted to have a window whenever I was in a closed-door situation.”
Several budget issues were discussed in detail.
Burrow proposed and board members approved refinishing the Dixon High School and Dixon Middle School gym floors for substantially different prices: $9,762.50 to Jarrett Enterprises for the middle school gym and $1,169.85 to American Gym Floor for the high school gym.
“There is a significant difference in price, so I wanted to bring it to your attention,” Burrow said. “The high school gym is a refinish like we do every year; the middle school gym, we are sanding all the way down.”
Burrow said the middle school gym floor has degraded to the point that the floor is becoming orange in color and the re-sanding job will “lighten up” the color of the gym. Gyms will be put on a rotation schedule for future floor sanding and upgrades, she said.
“Why do you have two different companies doing the two gym floors?” asked board member Craig Rivera.
Burrow said it’s because of a difference in the amount and type of work being done.
In other business:
• Board members approved a propane bid from Goodrich Gas of $2.089 per gallon. The district’s only other bid was from Amerigas, which didn’t offer a fixed bid but rather proposed a 47 cent per gallon markup over the cost they pay to a distributor.
• Burrow noted that the high school publications account, which includes the school newspaper and yearbook, had a deficit as it does in most years but said the deficit is lower than prior years because the sponsor has been trying to get more advertising to pay the bills. Burrow also noted that she approved the high school speech and debate account running a deficit because an aggressive teacher this year has been building the program; the school plays this year made money for the district and helped balance out the cost of the speech classes, she said.
• Board members agreed with a proposal by Burrow to host the 2008 fall regional meeting of the Missouri School Boards association.
“I think this is a really good PR thing for the Dixon school system,” Burrow said. “We have a lot to offer and I think this will allow us to show what we have to offer.”
• Hill noted that Dixon paid $92,494.21 in tuition to the Waynesville R-VI School District for the 2007-08 school year. That covers students attending Waynesville Technical Academy, which serves all school districts in Pulaski County as well as those in Iberia and Plato.
“That’s a hard one to miss,” Hill said. “But it is worth it for those kids, it really is.”