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Clintonville schools launch wellness program

Employees of the Clintonville School District will have the opportunity to participate in a Wellness Program this year. 
That’s the message that Wellness Committee members told the school board at its meeting, Monday, Aug. 11.

Lynette Edwards, business manager for the School District of Clintonville, said the wellness committee and plan idea originally started as a project for one of the classes she took when getting her certification degree. She said it seemed like every conference she attended included at least one session about employee wellness. 

She added that the district does have and has had a wellness plan that incorporates students, staff, and the community. 
“It’s great and there’s a lot of good things [in it],” Edwards said. 

She said the Wellness Committee wanted to focus strictly on employees with its new plan. 

“We wanted to know how we could better serve their wellness needs and at the same time improve productivity, and hopefully realize a savings in healthcare costs,” Edwards said. 

To get started, Edwards said every employee was given a survey regarding wellness. 

Edwards said the committee began meeting in March, and also collaborated with the district’s insurance consultant. 

The committee presented the school board with a copy of the draft of the wellness plan it is proposing. 

“We wanted to start simple,” Edwards said. “We chose a tagline that we really think speaks to how we want the employees to feel, and it is, ‘We are doing wellness for you, not too you.’”

The committee told the board that the survey employees filled out indicated that a big stressor is their work. 

The intent of the committee is to also provide employees with health risk assessment and biometric screening on a voluntary basis. This would probably take place in late-fall. 

Committee members said the goal is to eventually tie those results into incentives for employees. What those incentives are would be decided in the future. 

Edwards said the committee will continue to survey employees to verify that the things provided by the Wellness Committee meets their needs and wants. 

“We feel that this is an investment in our employees,” Edwards said. 

2014-15 proposed levy
The board unanimously approved a 2014-15 proposed levy that includes a mill rate of 11.31. This is based on no increase or decrease in equalized valuation. The board adopted the proposed levy so that the information could be included in the Annual Meeting Booklet. The annual meeting is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 25. 

The 2013-14 mill rate of 11.37. 

School calendar debated
Clintonville School District Superintendent Tom O’Toole asked the board to make one change to the 2014-15 school year calendar. He said the district planned to use the May inservice day to review MAPS testing data. Because that data isn’t available until later in May, O’Toole recommended moving that inservice day from May 8 to May 22. 

When it came time to discuss that change, board member Jim Dins said he’d like to see the district cut one week off from the end of the school year so the district would conclude its year the first week of June. 

“That’s all I hear from my people that talk to me,” Dins said. 

Pat Schley said she agreed with Dins. 

Dins asked if all the days off were requested by the administration, teachers, parents, or students. 

“I would say it was administrative driven,” O’ Toole said. 

He said it was done to improve instruction, and to answer critics about test scores.
 
O’ Toole said a school year no longer is determined by the number of school days in a year, but rather hours. 

There are many different schools of thought on how to put together a school calendar, O’ Toole said. He said there is year-round school.

“By starting after Labor Day, we’re never going to be done by the end of May. Not if we schedule enough days for our students,” O’ Toole said. 

He added, “My perspective is, if we’re not where we want to be test score wise we need to keep doing positive things for these kids. Doing the same old, same old, isn’t going to do it. But if we are doing more positive things we need to keep those kids here as much as we can.”

“I think it’s just a long year for the children,” Schley said. 

“I guess if we want to change the philosophy to “cram it in and get it done” we can do that too, we can do longer days,” O’ Toole said. 

Schley said she was thinking about the last week of school.

“There’s always a last week,” O’ Toole said. 

Schley said “the first week of June might be the best last week.”

Dins said he was fine with the schedule for this year, but when planning next year’s schedule he’d like to see what other school districts are doing with their schedules.   

Schley agreed. 

The board unanimously approved moving the inservice day from May 8 to May 22. 

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