Sean C. Morgan
School District 55 will host an open forum at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 23 to share information and take input from the public regarding the proposed four-day week.
The forum is tentatively planned to be in the Sweet Home High School cafeteria. If necessary, it may be held in the auditorium.
Supt. Don Schrader updated board members Monday night.
Schrader has formed a study team, including teachers and classified staff members, and they have visited Coos Bay and Harrisburg school districts, both of which have four-day weeks. They plan to visit Santiam Canyon School District this week.
The team will begin compiling reports and discussing what they learned on Thursday, Schrader said.
At the upcoming forum, Schrader plans to present what the team has learned about the four-day week in other districts and further survey findings. The district has received another 200 surveys since reporting about it in December, a total of about 800.
Lisa Gourley, president of the classified union, presented petitions with some 650 signatures to the board members. The petitions urge the board to reject the four-day week.
The four-day week is an option for reducing expenditures by some $400,000 next school year.
Officials are warning that the district may need to find up to $1.9 million by cutting or further spending of reserve funds.
“What we’re trying to do is meet the needs of our students with less resources,” Schrader said.
Board members present Monday night were Chanz Keeney, Dale Keene, Chairman Jason Redick, Mike Reynolds, David VanDerlip and Jenny Daniels.
Absent were Mike E. Adams, Billie Weber and Kevin Burger were absent.
In other business, the board:
n Passed a resolution that will allow half of tuition money paid by Josai University High School Japanese exchange students to be used to help pay for transportation and a coordinator for the summer program.
The board approved the proposal last month, but Keeney said he didn’t really understand that the money was taken from the general fund, and he voted against the resolution Monday.
Voting yes were Keene, Redick, Reynolds, VanDerlip and Daniels.
He said someone raised a point in a letter from a staff member that originally had been destined for the board members. Keeney said he had a problem taking funds out of the general fund while the district is looking at cutting programs for its own students.
The Josai program pays some $7,300 per student. This year, there are two.
Normally, Sweet Home students going to Josai have to pay to get there, but Josai pays expenses after they arrive in Japan, said Principal Pat Stineff. Josai students pay tuition while here during the school year, and they pay for their own expenses during the summer program, which lasts two weeks every other year.
The tuition provides a coordinator and travel through this proposal, Stineff said.
The Josai exchange students pay tuition because the district does not receive state funding for them, Strong said.
The district still must pay the cost of educating them. The tuition is set by dividing the total high school budget by the number of students, Strong said.
“It’s a situation where it’s really kind of supporting itself,” Redick said. “If this program didn’t exist at all, we wouldn’t be getting these kids from Josai at all.”
If the exchange students weren’t here paying tuition, the district isn’t going to cut programs, Schrader said.
“But it does make sense what Chanz is saying. Our kids cost money,” Schrader said.
Keeney would have preferred to continue using only 25 percent of the tuition funds to pay for the summer program, which serves a dozen or more Josai students for two weeks.
The 20-year-old program “is to promote a cultural exchange for our students, to see what it’s like in another country,” Stineff said.
n Approved and appropriated a grant award of $3,000 from a State Partnership Grant for the ASPIRE program to be used for the coordinator’s salary.
n Accepted the resignation of Seth Johnson, Sweet Home High School alternative education teacher, effective in March. Johnson said he needed to resign for personal reasons.
n Accepted a donation of a 20-inch Craftsman lawnmower from Warren L. Brekke.