School budget on track

DAYTON-The Dayton School Board adopted policy 6022 for a minimum fund balance of $450,000 at the board meeting July 14. The fund will be reviewed annually.

Superintendent Guy Strot and Business Manager Paula Moisio met with the board expressing the current financial situation of the school budget. "We are currently right on track with where we'd anticipate our revenue to be for this year," said Moisio.

Athletic Director Sam Korslud reported that the girls middle school volleyball camp recently concluded with the participation of over 20 girls. The district hired Shelby Gould who is the K-12 physical education teacher in Waitsburg as the assistant middle school volleyball coach.

Middle and high school football will both be offered for the fall season. Korslud will be the Position Coach for both teams teaching fundamentals. He is hoping to add one more assistant coach and is working to get the schedule put together and coordinate transportation. Korslud has also been driving busses so he can help transport kids while at the same time coaching.

The DW Athletic Code and DW Parent Athletic Code were both adopted at the meeting and will be soon adopted by Waitsburg. After that time, it will be available online for review and signing along with online registration for sports. All sports documents are already available on the athletics website.

Korslud discussed the facility use plan for athletics and shared that some parents were not happy with having all indoor sports in Dayton and the decision has been made to have middle school in Dayton and high school in Waitsburg for volleyball and have similar divisions of facility uses for the winter and spring sports. Korslud is working towards having DW host a basketball tournament over winter break.

Strot presented recommendations received from ESD 123 Assistant Superintendent Troy Tornow with the board. Towards the end of the school year, he came and interviewed 38 staff and has offered recommendations for how to evaluate Strot as superintendent. Turnow stated the highest priority is "leadership must be on the same page and work together" particularly between Strot and the high school principal Kristina Brown. Strot acted as elementary principal last year but will have new elementary principal Amy Cox to also work with next year.

The second recommendation was for "roles and responsibilities need to be defined and communicated." The feedback went on to say, "This is a key component of earning back trust and must start with the Board and Superintendent relationship. Also, how the Board and staff communicate will need to be addressed. The Superintendent needs to lead a process where roles and responsibilities of each leader in the system is defined."

Thirdly, Tornow said, "The Superintendent needs to focus on feedback regarding his communication and develop a personal growth plan focused on improving his skills in this area." And lastly, he stated, "The Dayton School District needs to define what it stands for, what its purpose is, and commit to a district culture that is focused on student learning." It expanded on this to say, "a recommitment to the purpose and professional culture of the district is necessary to help everyone work together for the students and community of Dayton."

The final statements emphasized to do this is through developing a mission and vision for the district and clear expectations for learning that is known by staff.

Strot said in regards to communications within the District "The bulk of that is on me. It was my failure and I'll fix it." He told staff in the email that included these recommendations of his goal to "outline both a 90 day as well as a full-year plan."

During public comment, community member Pearl Dennis questioned the changes in the discipline policy. She attended the third school community forum on discipline July 8. Strot replied the main differences will be in the reporting of infractions to parents through Skyward, the online system, which was previously only used sometimes by the secondary school. This will also provide a record of offenses.

Also, minor discipline infractions during class will be handled by teachers and major infractions will be handled by the principals. The secondary school will implement a flow chart of consequences as utilized by the elementary school after receiving feedback during the forum. The draft of the discipline policy will be reviewed and discussed at the next forum on August 12.