The Medical Lake School Board breezed through a short agenda at its Oct. 27 meeting.
The board approved a resolution to increase Medical Lake High School’s Associated Student Body imprest account — petty cash system — balance by $300. This increased the account’s current balance from $4,500 to $4,800.
Superintendent Tim Ames explained the imprest account has an insufficient balance only six cash boxes and cashiers do not have enough change on them when customers pay admission to attend events. He said the $300 increase and more cash boxes would help cashiers with this issue.
“It’s hard to charge $6 or $7 for events and you run out of $1 bills,” board member Ron Cooper added.
Sarah Fillman introduced herself as the district’s military family advocate to administration and principals. Fillman’s role as military family advocate includes coordinating and assisting military families of school-aged children with information and educational opportunities. Ames said she will be the contact for administrators, family and the school district on school-related matters necessary to succeed in an academic environment.
Fillman said she is “thrilled” to be working for the district.
“This has been a great fit for me, I’m learning everything I can and I look forward to furthering communication between the district and Fairchild Air Force Base,” Fillman said.
Board member Felicia Jensen asked if Fillman’s position would interfere with Fairchild family advocacy services. Ames said Fillman has met with Fairchild staff and she would be a voice for only the district, and not a liaison for the base.
Kim Headrick, director of teaching and learning, gave a review from the district’s Transitional Bilingual Program for the 2014-15 school year. Headrick said the district has 13 students — 10 in the elementary schools, two in middle school and one in high school — who identify as non-English Language Learners.
Headrick said 75 percent of ELL students experienced growth on the Washington English Language Proficiency assessment while 23 percent advanced from the ELL program from last year.
Headrick explained the district currently provides language development in elementary schools, 20-30 minutes a week while the middle school has a para-educator who tutors students before and after school. Staff is also implementing various guided language acquisition design strategies.
During his superintendent’s report, Ames announced the district received a letter from the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction announcing the alternative high school was fully compliant.
“There were three things we need to work on and Trish (Smith) and Kim (Headrick) worked on those,” Ames said.
In other business:
The board approved the second readings of policies that prohibits sexual harassment of students and district staff, and bid requirements for purchasing books, supplies and equipment — excluding books.
Mick Miller of NorthEast Washington Educational Service District 101 presented Medical Lake High School with an award for achieving full accreditation status.
Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].
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