Superintendent's Article - September 13, 2007

The 2007/2008 school year is off and running. Louisville Schools have had a good beginning, even though we had to make several reductions. Those reductions have resulted in fewer services in many areas including transportation, where we reduced one bus and arranged for quite a few cluster stops. The law requires that students not walk beyond one-half mile to a bus stop. We have not gone to that level of service yet, but some of the stops this year require children to walk further to catch the bus.

Our student enrollment is up by about 25 students after two weeks of school. This is encouraging as we utilize our limited resources.

The summer was extremely busy as one-third of the administrative staff was replaced. New administrative faces include two assistant high school principals, North Nim principal, Louisville Elementary principal, Main Street Principal, and Curriculum Director. With these changes also come changing job responsibilities and retraining of staff for what lies ahead. Hopefully with the hard work of all of our staff, the impacts will remain positive for students.

As you have probably heard by now, we have ratified a new contract with the OAPSE classified staff (secretaries, custodians, drivers, cafeteria, aides, and attendants). The staff will receive 1½% increases this year and 2% next year. They are leaving the self insurance plan with higher rates and migrating to the Stark County COG consortium. Full time employees will pay 5% of monthly premium rates this year and 10% in year three of the contract. Some language changes were made in areas such as Reduction in Force (RIF), personnel files, and extra bus trips. All in all, it was a good contract for both sides.

The Facilities Committee, chaired by Facility Manager Mark Sigler, is working through the OSFC process in amending the Master Facility Plan for the Louisville Schools. As you know, the 52% state share of the project is what we as a district are interested in using as we look to finish the renovation efforts. The four buildings impacted include Fairhope, Pleasant Grove, Louisville Elementary, and the High School. The committee is very sincere in keeping within the allocations.

If you have been keeping track of our fall sports, you need to pay particular attention to the cross country, golf, and soccer teams as they are having very good seasons. We wish all of our fall sports the very best as they compete in a classy manner.

Have a great week. Go Leopards!