Advance School Board accepts member resignation

The Advance R-IV Board of Education met on Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 with the following members present: Harold Miles, president; Linda Eggiman, secretary; Danny Seger, treasurer; David Kennedy, Brad Moore, and Ronnie Martin. Absent-Ronnie McAtee. Also present were Superintendent Stan Seiler and principals Shannon Garner and Shana Kight.

John Hillin, of Hillin and Clark Accounting, explained the school audit conducted by his firm, reporting that the school had received the "best opinion possible" on the audit. He indicated that the school could run for five months, even if the money stopped coming in. Hillin explained that anything over three months was good. The district had three million in total revenue.

Board members were given a detailed booklet, outlining the budget for 2011-2012.

In other business, the board heard the following:

* The district's total enrollment is 438 students.

* Mrs. Creech, the counselor, has been having various colleges make visits to the campus.

* Students are encouraged to keep a "scholastic organizer," whereby they can begin planning their courses of study when they are as young as the sixth grade. Orientation classes will be initiated for the 7th and 8th grade to prepare them for their courses of study.

* Administrators and teachers are looking at changing the grading system so that certain courses could be "weighted." In a study of 15 other area schools, it was determined that most of them did weight the more difficult courses, in order to encourage students to take them without threatening their grade point averages. The advanced course list is given out by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). It was discovered that Advance was the only school which gave A+ grades, which caused problems on some of the state reports. It was also reported that band, music, art and P.E. would be included in a student's GPA, beginning with this year's freshmen.

* Mrs. Kight and Mr. Garner went over the district's state tests, indicating that the school has, in all indications, met all its goals and will be credited with "distinction in performance." This will be announced in the near future.

The board moved into closed session to discuss a personnel issue and a student discipline issue. When the board meeting was resumed afterward, board member Brad Moore submitted his resignation, which was accepted by the board.

The school district has placed an ad in the local paper, as prescribed by law, requesting "letters of intent" from interested persons wishing to apply for the vacated board position. The letters will be accepted for a period of two weeks; then the board will interview applicants. The selected applicant will be sworn in at the November 10, 2011 school board meeting.

School board members must be U.S. citizens, be a resident taxpayer of the district, a resident of Missouri for at least one year, and at least 24 years of age. Deadline for applying is 4:30 p.m., Sept. 28, 2011. The term goes from Nov. 14, 2011 to April, 2012.