ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The USD 480 school board heard from administrators about needed improvements throughout the district at its most recent meeting Monday evening.
Superintendent Dane Richardson started those discussions during his report early in the meeting.
“We’ve had some professional development days recently, and part of the purpose of all of that was to go over the USD 480 school survey,” Richardson said. “Some of the subject areas covered was safety, having input on school initiatives to help with the physical operations of the school and what resources are there to help the students and teachers. We talked to teachers, administrators, students and parents. One of the things we really looked at was parent engagement – parent engagement is way, way down, and we found on average, 152 parents regularly engage with their students’ schools. Parent engagement is a very important part of any program, and it’s a requirement to seek parent input for decisions so we can be compatible with certain aspects of Title 1. Parent and family engagement is also important because studies show it leads to higher student achievement, better social-emotional development, improved behavior and increased graduation rates. We know more needs to be done to help increase that parent/family involvement, and those discussions with principals are continuing.”
Richardson also talked about recent school term audits through the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE).
“We are required to attend school for 186 days, or 1,116 hours, and in that audit, we were not compliant and had a lot of notes on that,” Richardson said. “Looking through everything, we discovered part of that may have been due to clerical error, so we have submitted a correct action plan that calls for more training and audits to be done by administrators. That was sent to KSDE and they will give us a response in the near future of whether we’re compliant for that audit.”
Later on in the meeting, Liberal High School Principal Darla Forney talked to the board about updates to the LHS Handbook, particularly with the attendance and tardy procedures.
“We recently got together to talk about this because we noticed it wasn’t just a handful of students occasionally, it was more than 100 students, and daily,” Forney said. “And these students weren’t tardy by just a few minutes, but a rather substantial amount of time before filing in to class, which is very disruptive. The administrative team and leadership team came together and came up with some new procedures we want to implement next semester. Our top priority, obviously, is attendance, so we’re hoping if we can get the students to school, and get them there on time, attendance will be improved. Attendance leads to learning, learning leads to passing grades, which leads to gaining credits, which leads to graduating on time. I understand I have a big graduation goal to reach this year, which I want to do, but we’ve got to get the students in school and in school on time. Early on, these updates talk about how important it is to be on time and be in attendance, and I would like to remind ALL parents how being in school is their children’s job and education is almost like a paycheck. In these updates, the first bell is at 7:50 a.m., the tardy bell is at 7:55 a.m. – which is also when school starts – and students have from 7:55 to 8:05 a.m. to be tardy, so there is a small grace period in there. After 8:05 a.m., they are officially absent from that first mod, and it’s counted as unexcused.”
And that is not the only aspect included in the handbook, Forney said.
“There’s also some information in there about the Kansas Education Code and consecutive unexcused absences and what the consequences are after a certain number of those,” Forney said. “We report that to the Truancy people, and it could come to the point where that student is filed on. With the tardy procedures, we hope to start those at the start of the next semester, and we plan on having members of the admin team as well as other advisors at all the doors, and we’ll have scanners on our phones to keep track of everyone. We’ve already talked to the office staff, and they’re willing to keep a list of accumulated tardies, and after three tardies, they’ll face consequences. If a student accumulates four to six tardies, they’ll have to spend an hour after school with an advisor or administrator, and they’ll have to do something academic-related and make up the missed time. We’re expecting some high numbers to start out with, but I’m hoping the students will get the message pretty quickly and start getting to school and getting there on time. If a student accumulates eight tardies, that will require a meeting with the parents/guardians, and that student will also have to be in In-School Suspension (ISS) for three days, which will be focused on getting schoolwork completed. The overall goal is to make the students make up the time they’re missing, it’s a logical consequence. We know this will be a lot, especially at the beginning, and we’re going to be sending this information out to parents and families and sharing this information on our social media pages and through PowerSchool and other means of communication. I know there are some extenuating circumstances that can happen, but it’s so, so important for these students to be at school on time. I know there’s no job that would allow this, so it stands to reason we shouldn’t allow excessive tardiness with school either.”
In the meeting’s other new business, the board approved the addition of an assistant coach position for the Eisenhower Middle School boys’ wrestling program and finalized the property transaction with the City of Liberal for the remaining portion of USD 480’s Pine Street property. The board also approved a quote from Southwest Glass in the amount of $17,799 to replace doors at the former McKinley Elementary School building and Resolution 11-10-25 concerning the adoption of the Kansas Homeland Security Region D Hazard Mitigation Plan. To conclude the meeting’s new business, the board approved goals for the Board Strategic Action Plan. All motions were approved 6-0, with board member Nick Hatcher absent.
