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FRIDAY BOARD BULLETIN 4/6/18


Posted Date: 04/09/2018

FRIDAY BOARD BULLETIN 4/6/18

Board Members:

Don’t you just wish winter would quit cutting in line? I can’t believe how cold it is today, and there is snow in the forecast over the weekend! It has been another very busy week here at school. On Monday OPAA! was in the district to visit with our food service staff and relieve some of the anxiety they may be feeling with regard to the changes we are planning for next year.

Tuesday was our final superintendent student advisory committee meeting of the year and I was glad to have an opportunity to engage with these students this year. They gave great input and have some suggestions that we hope to incorporate into our school to improve the student experience. Thursday morning of this week we met to discuss the website and get the ball rolling with that project. I see there are some model templates ready for review in my inbox, I hope to get to those sometime yet this afternoon. Today I was in Des Moines for a BoEE meeting. I just got home about 20 minutes ago from that meeting.

Work in the legislature was kind of a mix of good and bad this week. They still have a lot of work to do, with just six more days of scheduled work, budget targets and appropriations still haven’t been set. There are a couple of problematic developments this week that you may have heard about. The first is a proposal to change bond elections in a manner that will only allow one bond election a year, which would coincide with the general election. The problems with this approach are numerous, starting with the fact that if an election fails, by the time it can come up for a vote again construction prices would have increased and an entire construction cycle would have passed. Yet the worst news out of the legislature this week is a bill that would roll back the commercial and industrial property tax back fill. In Hudson that would equate to roughly $30,000, which coincidentally is the amount of budget growth we expect to receive from supplemental state aid. The only way in which to recover this revenue is through a a property tax increase. If there is one piece of good news this week, it is that the operational sharing bill finally moved out of appropriations and is now eligible for debate on the Senate floor. The only caveat is that instead of a complete repeal of the sunset, it pushes it back to 2024-2025.

Preschool kids working on gross motor skills

The picture I am sharing this week is preschool students working on their gross motor skills. As you can see from the photo, the students are participating in an obstacle course of sorts. I suppose under an idea weather situation, both students and teacher alike would have preferred this to be an outdoor activity.

Have a great weekend!

Dr. Anthony D. Voss, Superintendent