Wow! How time has flown this semester! It’s hard to believe that it’s almost Christmas.
As many of you know, we had a major issue with leaking gas lines at the junior high and high school. It seemed every time we thought we were done with repairs; we would find another problem. Thankfully, the lines and several heating units have been repaired or replaced and everything is working properly, now. The entire project totaled a little over $50,000--money which I wish we could have spent for other things but, of course, the health and safety of our students comes first.
I want to give a special thank you to the OG&E servicemen, particularly Keith Thiessen’s crew, who came numerous times to assist us. They spent several late evenings at our school to help us solve problems including one night past 2:00 a.m.!
We recently purchased 150 new chromebooks which have been distributed to classes. Our Third through Eighth Grades have chromebooks in their classrooms. Freshmen through Seniors also have access to them through mobile carts. Our teachers are continuing training on Google Classroom to encourage the successful use of the chromebooks.
We have also installed a new video surveillance system in the Lemke Gym. We are practicing with this system to determine if we want to use it in our buildings (as funding is available). The current system is severely outdated.
At our December school board meeting, the principals and I discussed our state test scores with the board. We spoke at length about how the current system is greatly flawed. Schools with higher poverty and higher special education numbers inherently do worse on this model.
No system is fair to the students, teachers or the community when the level of median community income so strongly affects the outcome of the scores. In other words, schools in richer communities score much better than schools in less affluent communities.
This model is also based on the old “bell curve” system which went out with bell-bottom pants. Under this system, regardless of how schools score, 68% of schools in the entire state have to earn a C; 14% must have B’s and 14% must have D’s; only 2% may have A’s while 2% are given F’s.
Our board believes in accountability but understands that the current method provides none. They asked me to pass on their heartfelt thanks to our teachers for the job that they do and encourage them to keep striving to help our students succeed. Our board is definitely behind our staff.
With that said, the BFDC faculty, staff, administration and board wish that the holiday season bring only happiness and joy to you and your loved ones.
Larry Johnson is superintendent of Burns Flat-Dill City Schools.