Oroville School Board members serve ice cream to elementary school students and their parents following an open house last Monday evening, Aug. 30, the first day of school for the Oroville School District. Photo by Gary DeVon

OROVILLE – Superintendent Steve Quick announced that schoolpolicies are now on the Oroville School District’s Web site and moreinformation is being added to the site frequently.

Quick made the announcement at the school board’s Monday,Aug. 30 meeting and added that there is also a district map, as well as maps ofall the school bus routes and a listing of bus schedules. The financial part ofthe school’s food program is also available online, said Quick. The Web site islocated at http://www.oroville.wednet.edu/.

Supt. Quick reported that the 2010 Census may result in someredistricting for the various school director positions, but these changeswould not take affect until the next regular election. He suggested that if thedistrict wanted to consider changing to four board positions based on area andone at-large position that now might be the time to begin the discussion. Hesaid other districts in the region have also discussed making this type of change.

“I want to thank you for changing the last board meeting toallow me to attend the superintendents’ meeting in Olympia,” Quick said. “Atthe same time it allowed Gary (Pringle) to attend the principals’ meeting.”

Quck announced the district had received an ExceptionalResults certificate from the Washington State Patrol after its inspection ofthe district’s school buses.
“This is huge, not all districts get such outstanding results and it’s due toRandy (Bell),” he said.

The principals were asked to give their reports about thefirst day of school.

“It’s been an exciting day, at last count we had 337students in the elementary school with some still coming in. Some of theteachers will have to redo their rosters,” Elementary School Principal Pringlesaid.

Pringle said he wanted to get across that there are threekey elements to a successful school program that can be thought of like thelegs of a three-legged milk stool.

“The first is the parents, families and community, thesecond is the school and its community and the third is the child,” he said.”It takes all three legs to maintain the proper balance.”

The principal said that the community is getting involvedand that he met with EPIC, which is changing to a Parent Teacher Organization.

“I told them their main focus should be to get theirorganization up and healthy before they consider any fundraisers,” Pringlesaid, adding that he will be planning family nights, fun nights and curriculumnights to he held this year.

He told the board that the curriculum nights are a way ofhelping parents understand what is being taught to their students.

“For example our generation did math much differently… wehear ‘I can’t help.’ At the curriculum nights we will be bringing in ourreading and math specialists to help the parents so they can help their kids,”he said.

High School Principal Patricia Smith said she has beenfocusing on where she wants her staff to be. She said she has met with theAssociated Student Body (ASB) because there were some problems last year. Shealso met with the Athletic Director about coaches and fund raisers.

“We also had a picnic at the State Park… we are having agood start to the year,” she said.

Carl Iverson reported on this year’s Summer School program.He said that the district used the Apex Learning Digital Curriculum program forcredit recovery and that the program ended very successfully. The programallows students to make up half a credit in a subject that they are fallingbehind in. It uses an online study and testing system that is approved by theOffice of Student Public Instuction.

“We started with 29 students and ended up with 21 halfcredits,” Iverson said. “Laura Peters helped me and she does a great job.”

Iverson said if he could do anything differently he wouldmake himself more available. He said he gave out his cell phone number and thestudents that kept more in touch were more successful. Iverson also said hewould make a minimum number of hours of study a requirement.

“There were some students who thought they could doeverything in the last minute. Some also thought they could beat the system,but I could see everything they were doing. Some would sign on, then go dosomething else for three hours, come back and sign off. I could see when thatwas happening,” he said.

In the past only English and math were offered during summerschool. “With the APEX  program we areable to tailor the classes to get kids back on the path to graduation,” Iversonsaid.

Custodian Nathan Shirley gave the board a full report on thecleaning, maintenance and repair that went on over the summer at both theelementary and junior-senior high school buildings.

Several board members complemented Shirley and his crew onthe job they had done in the buildings and said they looked great.

Brett Fancher, Oroville’s Athletic Director told the boardthat all the sports teams were “pretty much underway” and gave a count of thenumber of players turning out for each team. He also said there was a footballgame scheduled at Kelowna on Friday, Sept. 3 at 7:30 p.m.

A strategy workshop for the board is planned in thedirectors’ boardroom at 5 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 20. The next regular OrovilleSchool Board meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 27 in the boardroom.