By Greg Denecker, Bluffton schools superintendent

The following report from the Bluffton school superintendent is part of the Bluffton schools winter newsletter recently mailed to residents of the school district. The entire newsletter is an attachment at the bottom of this story.

We had an excellent first semester of school and are looking forward to the second semester being just as great. 

In the last newsletter, we stated that the local report card would be sent out in early 2013; however, we are still waiting for the Ohio Department of Education to release the final copy.  The state auditor’s office has not completed its investigation of schools that had issues with attendance and testing. 

We would still like to send out the results of this report card once it is final, but we realize this is becoming old news as the report is for the 2011-2012 school year.  We do have confirmation that our rating will be “Excellent” for the 7th straight year, and our district has met 100% of the state indicators for each of those seven years. 

Our performance index of 107.4 is our highest ever and ranks in the top 6% of all schools in the state.  

As always, our students and staff are working hard to maintain and exceed our “Excellent” rating on the Ohio Department of Education report card.  Specifically, our staff is concentrating on the new Academic Content Standards (known as the Common Core Curriculum) that have been passed and adopted by forty-five states.

We have been sending staff members to professional development opportunities and have utilized 2- hour delays in order to conduct in-house and half-day training sessions on Formative Instructional Practices (FIP).  FIP helps the staff deconstruct the new standards and create plans to best prepare students for the new Common Core assessments, which should be in place in 2014-15.

In addition, the state has made a new law that has changed the teacher evaluation system.  This new evaluation system is based 50% on teacher performance and 50% on student growth measures.  The teacher performance standard will consist of formal classroom observations and walk-throughs/informal observations, as well as a pre-conference, post-conference, and complete performance assessment. 

The student growth measures will consist of a variety of measures to capture student academic growth from one year to the next.  Measures of student academic growth will include the State Achievement Assessments given in Math and Language Arts in grades 3-8.  Obtaining the growth measures for students in other grades is an area that we, as a district, will be working on. 

Please be aware that teachers will be categorized in one of four areas: Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, and Ineffective.  The state has told us that the number of teachers designated as “Accomplished” will be very low for each district and statewide collectively.  We have been told that the vast majority of teachers will be rated in the “Proficient” or “Developing” categories.

To explain, while “Proficient” might sound like an average rating, this is really not the case. Proficient ratings in this evaluation system will likely go to very good teachers.  With that said, I believe our teachers are very dedicated individuals who will work their hardest to help our students succeed in the classroom and in life.  The evaluation system is a work in progress.  Some of the rules and laws continue to change, and we will do our very best to ensure a fair and accurate system of evaluation.

Since the terrible events that transpired in Newtown, Connecticut, in December, we have been in close contact with Bluffton Police officers and have had many administrative meetings on the topic of school safety. 

Our staff took a refresher training on ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate), after school on Tuesday, January 8, and our district will be represented along with the Bluffton Police department at future meetings on school safety from both regional and national perspectives. 

In the meantime, we are finalizing plans for a buzz-in system to enter each of our school buildings.  We understand that this system will be an inconvenience to our parents and public, but we hope all will understand that the system’s purpose is to increase the safety of our students and staff.  In addition, classrooms will be locked at all times during the school day; when the door shuts it will lock immediately.  We will continue to look for, evaluate, and implement additional safety measures as they become available. 

We have changed the bus drop-off in the morning to the Franklin Street entrance in our parking lot for all our students.  Please do not drive in that area while students are being dropped off.  This change has worked out very well and has cut down on some of the congestion on Jackson Street at the start of the day.

Governor Kasich should soon unveil his vision of funding for public schools for the next two years and possibly for many years to come.  Our state has not had a real funding formula for most school districts since the late 1990’s.  We will provide updates on the potential new funding formula in future newsletters. 

In the meantime, the casino tax revenue for our district is about $24,000, which is supposed to be given to our district two times a year.  The number will fluctuate each time with the amount of gambling and the number of students we have in our district.  While this money is nice, it does not make up for the over $700,000 our district has lost in state funds over the last 4 years. 

We hope this casino tax will not eventually be treated like the state lottery, which has become part of the overall education budget for the state instead of an additional funding source as was originally sold to the public. 

As always, we, in the school district, take great pride in the fact that Bluffton is a great place to live, to work, and to learn. I would like to thank the students, staff, and community for their continuing dedication to excellence in education.

Please contact me with any questions or concerns about the district.  Either stop in or call me at 419-358-5901.

Greg Denecker, Superintendent