Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The Colfax School District Board met Monday night and covered various items, including approving a 2017-18 enrollment projection, hiring a new custodian for Jennings Elementary and announcing a final cost for the new track.
The meeting began with comments from Superintendent Jerry Pugh, who commended safe trips to Silverwood for the eighth-grade and for the class of 2017 before they graduated June 3.
It was the district's first online-accessible graduation, in which Pugh noted a hit from Alaska for the broadcast, which he surmised came from his son.
The board then took in a presentation from members of the Palouse Area Robotics team, made up of high school students from around the county, including Colfax. Mentor Helena Johnson and four students gave a demonstration of their robot – which they built and competed with this spring – and showed video and pictures of their season, including the world championships in Houston.
The board then approved resignations of Mike Parrish, head baseball coach; Dan Brown, junior high boys basketball coach, and Evanna Morgan, junior high track assistant.
They approved the addition of Lori Brown as a summer school reading teacher.
Also approved was the hiring of Donna Allen as a new custodian at Jennings. Allen was at the meeting to be introduced, even though she knew most of the board members. A Colfax High graduate, Allen began her working life as a teenager for her father at Allen’s Restaurant, now the site of today's Zip's.
Pugh announced Kylie Kackman as the board's new student representative for 2017-18, succeeding graduate Jayden Burt. The board's student representative is elected by the student body.
District Business Manager Reece Jenkin then presented the board figures for a 2017-18 enrollment projection, which is to be decided and sent to the state in July to set funding levels on a per-student basis.
Jenkin noted that last summer the district projected 570 full-time equivalent students. At the start of the year, 588 enrolled and 574 were in school in June for an average of 581.
He projected a number of 560 for this year, noting that it is best to be conservative in the estimates.
“Everyone is welcome to give me input,” he said. “You get 10 kids more than you expect, that's a great thing.”
A district can be penalized for projecting too high.
Colfax estimates come from analyzing numbers such as families moving out of town after the conclusion of the school year, incoming kindergarten class size, students coming into the high school from Steptoe and transfers.
September's kindergarten class numbers six less than the count of the class of 2017.
“It's unfortunate, it's on average we lose 10 a year,” Jenkin told the board of the district's student-count.
The board then approved the enrollment projection.
Jenkin will now prepare to receive funding levels from the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), which awaits the legislature's decision on Washington's overall budget.
In the process, the legislature may include a change in teacher salary schedules, which the Colfax district would then accommodate.
At the conclusion of Monday's school board meeting, Pugh and Jenkin noted a final tally for the district's new track, which was built last summer and fall. The total was $553,654.31, including $250,000 from the district, $62,700 raised by private donations to the C-Town project, $196,000 from a state Recreation and Conservation Office grant and $40,000 from county .09 funds.
The totals did not include the cost for the new restrooms which were built next to the track at the athletic complex – part of a joint City of Colfax/school district project, for which the district put in $66,000, a sum that was subsequently reimbursed by a .09 grant.
“The bathroom piece for us was a wash,” Jenkin said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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