Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Budget Looks Funny; Isn't

Gurdon School District's operating fund looks to be a bit out of line.

Gurdon Superintendent Bobby Smithson said there have been some extraordinary expenditures, including loaning $100,000 to the district's building fund.

This, along with paying $3,500 for a special education student to attend another school and $5,000 for having dirt and gravel hauled to building sites, make the operating fund look worse than it is, he said.

The money to repay the fund is currently in certificates of deposit, and these CDs won't mature until May. At this time, he said, they will be cashed in and the operating fund will be repaid.

In addition, he told the Gurdon School Board at its Feb. 16, meeting, by refinancing the bonds the district can save more than $100,000 in interest, though the payment schedule won't be affected.

The district's bonds, he said, were sold Tuesday, Feb. 22, by Stephen's Inc. at 4.2 percent.

Most of the savings will be seen in April 1999, as some $88,000 in interest will basically vanish. From then on, he said, the savings will be smaller each month.

Construction was another big topic for the board.

Smithson said funding has been found to buy more bleachers for the Gurdon Primary School physical education building. These should be installed by May 1, in time for the GPS kindergarten graduation ceremonies.

There has been a lot of progress on the Cabe Middle School PE building, he said. The stud walls are up and ready to be paneled. The floors of one of the classrooms will be tile, while the other will be carpet.

Getting the floor in place in the PE building is about all left to be done to it as well, along with having the ceiling put in place. The floors should be in anytime.

Once heating and air conditioning is in place for the classrooms the ceilings can be installed and they will almost be ready for occupancy.

Overall, he said, the building should be ready for use in another three or four weeks.

However, basketball goals will have to be purchased for the gymnasium part. No prices have been obtained, as the decision needs to be made on using either suspended goals or portable adjustable ones. The portable adjustable goals are used in the GPS PE building.

The construction costs, to date, he said, don't include furniture for the classrooms nor a sidewalk from the main building.

Still, he said, the project should come in on budget at about $200,000.

Work is also progressing on the new field house. Most of the interior walls are up and the steel structure is in place for the roof and ceiling.

Once the roof has been installed the masonry contractors will return and finish up. Smithson said it will take them about three weeks to get their part completed, and the field house should be ready by the end of March.

Work is also being done to the new football field, but there has been no word about the new bleachers. The bleachers were ordered from R.J. Love.

Negotiations are underway for the light poles and lights. There are still details to be worked out, Smithson told the board.

The high bid on the lighting system appears to be in the range of $54,00, while a total of $80,000 was budgeted for it.

The district may purchase 70-foot tall poles for the lights instead of 80-foot ones as originally considered. This is because the 70-footers will be less expensive and would provide as much lights as their taller counterparts.

At this time, he said, the proposed track can be built if the district goes strictly with an asphalt surface instead of the 80-20 latex composite. The composite, the board was told, is more expensive than first thought, but can be added at a later date.

"Asphalt," Smithson said, "will be better than anything we've ever had." This is because Gurdon has never had a track before.

The track, he added, is one of the lowest priorities at this time. Everything else needs to be completed first, while the track can wait.

Changing to discussion on the GPS construction project, Smithson told the panel he hopes to have the drawings in hand by the end of March. This is what has been promised by the architect.

Smithson said it's harder to draw plans for renovation than to make a design for a new building. Still, he added, it is hoped the contractor can be hired before school lets out for the summer.

An unpleasant topic was next discussed - test scores.

A set of computerized graphs were shown to the board to demonstrate where the district stands on SAT-9 testing - and the results were less than favorable.

Grades five, seven and 10 were tested, with the fifth grade improving its basic battery scores from the 36th to 40th percentile. The seventh grade, though fell from 43 to 39, while the sophomore class dropped from 48 to 39.

This, Bonnie Ross said, is misleading because a different group of students were tested this year than last.

Smithson said the scores are still to low. "I don't like scores in the 30's," he said. "I prefer them in the high 40's and 50's."

With the testing now done in the fall, Ross said, it has affected the students, primarily the fifth graders.

Smithson said the district isn't focusing enough on the test results until the school's report card comes in.

The problem, he continued, is the district may not be focusing its efforts in the right area for the testing and may not have the right information as far as what will be on the tests.

Other districts, he said, do better even though they and Gurdon have similar student make up.

"I have no excuse for the difference," he said. "We need to focus our attention on being test conscious yet not teach the test."

Summer school, he added, has not helped test scores either.

"I'm concerned about these scores. There's no reason we can't be in the 40s range. We have children who aren't motivated at home and there are a lot of factors in there. I have no answers."

He said reading needs to be put back in the eighth grade curriculum while some type of remedial program is instituted at the high school level.

At this time, other than special education classes, there are no remedial courses at GHS.

"We're not getting the job done," he said. "We need to develop a written strategy for all students and use it regularly. We could base exemptions on test (SAT-9) scores, and visit other district to see what they're doing."

Smithson promised to have a written strategy ready by the June meeting of the board.

The district is also looking for new cheerleader sponsors. Ross and Carrie Green have decided not to return and lead the cheerleaders next season.

Ross said there was a problem last year with a student being dropped from the squad.

According to the cheerleader constitution once this happens the student can never return to the squad. This is not fair, Ross said.

She suggested changing the constitution to require the student in question to sit out a full year from the date of their susp