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Thursday, March 1,2018 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Page A-19
BY DANA KAMPA
dana@masoncoun~ com
Looking at capital construction, North Mason
School District Superintendent Dana Rosenbach
shared some bad news about renovations at the Mary
E. Theler Community Center at the February meet-
ing. Contractors told the district Feb. 12 that rodents
had severely damaged the attic's insulation.
"We have later determined that working condi-
tions were unsafe for them due to the contamina-
tion," Rosenbach said. "The renovations have ceased
until the contaminated materials can been restored."
The district expects to accept a bid for the extra
work that week. The contaminated insulation will
have to be removed and replaced, and the district
will have to hire an exterminator to treat the build-
ing and protect it against pests in the future. Consid-
ering the scope of work and timeframe, Rosenbach
said she doesn't anticipate to receive three or more
bids and will thus move forward with whoever re-
sponds.
"All of that has to happen before we can continue,"
she said.
Ashley Supry, school district director of business
& finance, said the work will hopefully not exceed
$15,000, allowing the district to move forward with-
out getting three quotes.
On a better note, Rosenbach said crews had al-
most finished installing the HVAC system, updating
the sprinkler system and will complete the electrical
work once the building is safe to re-enter.
Rosenbach said preschool students will remain
where they are currently being taught for the rest
of the year, though construction will likely wrap up
before then, giving faculty and staff time to move in
to the building over the summer.
Herald file photo by Brianna Loper
Contractors working to bring the Mary E. Theler Community Center up to code as a preschool facility
encountered extensive rodent damage Feb. 12 to the building's insulation.
Construction on the North Mason High School seating and roofing -- for consideration at the board's
football stadium's locker room/concession stand March meeting. The superintendent said construc-
building is progressing, and Rosenbach said she an- tion should be completely finished in time for the
ticipates receiving a bid for the rest of the project -- mid-September season opening.
NORTH MASON SCHOOL DISTRICT BRIEFS
Board thinks long-term
financial planning
The North Mason School Board last week ad-
justed its financial management policy to make sure
the school district at minimum always has enough
funding for one month's complete payroll in reserve.
North Mason School Board President Craig Patti re-
called when the district had its funding pulled mid-
year amidst the onset of the recession, and Superin-
tendent Dana Rosenbach said the goal was to keep
the district from ending up in a situation where it
would have to choose who gets paid and who doesn't.
January's revenue was slightly lower and expen-
ditures slightly higher than projected. District Di-
rector of Business & Finance Ashley Supry said this
was largely because enrollment in special education
programs decreased, while the costs for high-need
special education students increased. The district
also had to pay to complete multiple maintenance
projects that were not originally budgeted and to
cover increased payroll and benefit expenses negoti-
ated since the beginning of the school year.
Despite unbudgeted expenses, Supry said she
anticipates the budget will be back on track once
the special education funding evens out. The actual
and budgeted revenues and expenditures to date are
similar.
Supry said the district is still seeing enrollment of
about 50 students more than was originally budget-
ed. Washington state schools receive funding based
upon enrollment.
Over the next few months, unbudgeted expendi-
tures in particular for work at the Mary E. Theler
Community Center will start to rise, Supry said.
=The Theler project wasn't included in our budget
for this year, and that was a larger chunk of funds,"
Supry said. "You're going start to see that, as well
as those payroll increases and the benefit increases
for classified staff and for our bus drivers. It was
obviously very important to ensure that we gave the
staff the raises that they deserved, but we're going
to see that as an increase in expenditures over bud-
get in these upcoming months."
More elementary school
students eating breakfast
North Mason School District Director of Nutri-
tion Services Michelle Waller said last week she was
excited Sand Hill Elementary School recently began
offering pod breakfasts, mobile hotboxes and cold
boxes, with funding from a national Community Eli-
gibility Provision grant allocated last year. All el-
ementary school students in the district are eligible
to receive breakfast and lunch at no charge through
the 2017-18 school year regardless of family or
household income, according to the district website.
Partially because of this change, Waller said the
number of students eating breakfast went from 50
percent last year to 70 percent this year. Waller said
the state average is 30 to 40 percent. Belfair El-
ementary participation is in the high 60 percent.
Waller said she also applied for a Meals for Kids
grant from the state, allowing staffto purchase new
serving utensils, trays and a milk cooler at Sand
Hill Elementary. Last year, Belfair Elementary also
purchased a new dishwasher, steam tables, ovens
and hotboxes.
"We've been able to, over the past three years,
update those kitchens of the older schools at no ex-
pense to the district," Waller said.
This year, Waller said she still hopes to get a
grant to replace Sand Hill's refrigerators and steam
table.
"Then, both elementary schools will be completely
updated with new equipment," she said.
Waller said the staff aims to offer healthful, ap-
petizing, scratch-made meals whenever possible, un-
likethe image often seen in the news of inadequate
meals.
School district reviews
discipline policy
The North Mason School Board examined its com-
munication and student discipline policies Feb. 21
during its monthly meeting, and conducted its mid-
year evaluation of Superintendent Dana Rosenbach
in an executive session.
While reviewing board policy concerning the
superintendent's communication with the public,
board members Laura Boad and John Campbell said
they especially appreciated her communication on
issues of school closings and general information.
Regarding school discipline, Rosenbach said she
has been working to make sure the district's policy
conforms to changing state requirements.
"It is sometimes hard for our staff to determine
what actions to take, but they do use our guidelines
as a starting place," she said.
The next board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
March 15 in the administration office boardroom.
Board member Art Wightman encouraged commu-
nity members to come and offer their input on school
disciplinary policy at the next meeting.
Compiled by reporter Dana Kampa
ing started or are well underway." dollars can be spent.
continued from page A-18 This growth is anticipated not just "The Legislature is considering a
at the kindergarten level, but also in number of bills that would make ad-
She presented a budgeted enroll- grades across the board with the de- justments to how they determined we
ment of 2,283 for 2018-19, the full-time parture of some smaller class sizes. For were funding schools in the last ses-
equivalent of 87 more students than the past several years, enrollment has sion," she said.
were enrolled as of February. been growing, but by a much smaller Though the newly proposed guide-
"You'll see a significant jump," margin, lines are fairly vague at this point,
Rosenbach said. "This is actually a very Even with this increase, Rosenbach Rosenbach said, she expects the state
conservative estimate based on the dif- said allocating the funding may pres- to provide more firm numbers before
ferent demographic guidelines that we ent a challenge next year given the the end of the session.
look at for doing our projections and sweeping changes the state Legislature The school district anticipates levy
considering the changes in the commu- enacted in 2017 to school funding, par- collections for 2018-19 to be approxi-
nity, the building projects that are be- ticularly with the specifics of how state mately $4.6 million. This amount is set
to drop significantly over the coming
years as the new budgeting structure
allocates more funding from state dol-
lars and fewer from local levies. The
district will not be able to collect all the
funding previously approved by local
voters unless something changes in the
next week.
The superintendent's guidelines
specify that as of Sept. 1, 2018, the
district will own almost $4.1 million
in non-voted debt and $45.5 million in
voted debt, less than a third of the dis-
trict's capacity.