BY TONY FURSE | April 26, 2023

Prairie View Unified School District 362 board of education members heard curriculum and instruction updates at their monthly meeting April 10.

Wade Teagarden, board president, asked about state assessment testing that occurred this month.

Beth Sandness, student services director, said the district “tries to push back against the (testing) window” as late as possible. She said science testing required for grades 5, 8 and 11 were conducted three weeks ago. English/language arts testing for grades 3-8 and 10 occurred two weeks ago, and mathematics assessments for the same seven levels last week finished the district’s state assessments.

Social studies assessments are conducted as written classroom assignments/projects.

Sandness said the state hopes to have results back to the district by the first of June.

Russell Pope, board member, asked about the Buffalo Attendance Matters incentive this year and if the most recent 65 percent of students at or above 95 percent attendance is an improvement from a year ago.

“In some buildings, it is. It gets a lot harder as the kids get older,” she said in alluding to prize incentives, with many “in a bubble between 90-95 percent.” Sandness added, however, that the district is one of the few in Kansas where chronic absentee numbers “are going down rather than up.”

Pope asked Joseph Hornback, Ed.D., district curriculum director and high school principal, about membership rotation on the district’s curriculum council.

“People on the list are first asked and welcomed to stay,” Hornback said. “I encourage different high school people in my building. They get a different perspective of the whole curriculum.”

Hornback said this year’s curriculum council representation was decreased from three persons per building to two.

“Administrators said it’s difficult to get three,” he said and noted recruitment efforts if not enough faculty members otherwise volunteer.

During consent agenda financial statements, Pope asked about the vehicle requiring a $5,650.63 handwritten check to Certified Transmission Inc. Laurie McCarthy, district transportation supervisor, confirmed that the replaced transmission was for a 2011 Chevrolet Suburban.

In other business before the board:

--A retirement reception for Rex Bollinger, Ed.D., district superintendent, and David Reynolds, high school industrial education teacher, was announced from 3:45-6 p.m. May 10 at Prairie View High.

--No public action followed two executive sessions totaling 12 minutes for teacher contract negotiations.