Emery School District Superintendent Larry Davis
By Julie Johansen
Emery School District Superintendent Larry Davis has spent a portion of each week monitoring the Legislature in Salt Lake City and its effect on education. Davis has special interest in certain bills that would make an impact locally.
HB132S1 (Juvenile Justice) – This bill would give educators assistance in dealing with truancy as the student could be referred to the court if they do not comply with school/district remediation plan. Right now, there are 27 truancy cases at the high school and current legislation prevents the court from handling these cases.
HB293 (Equalization) – This would use funds collected from an increase in property tax revenue and distribute them to districts that fall below other districts. This would mean a tax increase. The other equalization bill, SB145, would fund equalization by taking funds from the state education fund.
HB175 (Oversight Committee) – This bill creates the Joint Committee on Governmental Oversight and establishes
provisions related to the oversight of an administrative rule.
“This would create another layer of bureaucracy we really don’t need,” the superintendent stated.
HB282 (SIS Fees) – This would require all districts using the SIS program to pay annual fees for the program. Emery District has used this program for years without any charge. This would amount to $10,000 to $12,000/year.
Community Council and Trust Lands Funding changes – This would make it more flexible to use the Trust Land Funds. These decisions are site based and made by the community council at each school. This would make it possible to be used for motivational items or character education. The use of these funds has been previously very limited.
One item receiving consideration and action in the Emery School District is the teacher evaluation policy and procedure. The educators association presented this to the district as a negotiation item last summer. A committee has been formed and charged with reviewing the current policy and procedure relevant to teacher evaluations. The objective is to make the evaluations less confrontational and more informative by softening the language and procedure.
Taking root in the district are the early out PLC, Collaborative Teams and “School City” Data Programs. Three mid-term early out days and two full days have happened so far this year and the results seem to be encouraging, according to David. These days give the teachers planning and collaboration days with peers. Those schools using the School City can develop individual learning plans for students. The real test of these programs will be tests at the end of the year, like SAGE and/or ACT tests.
Involvement in the area economic development remains high on the superintendent’s priority list. He and other district personnel attended the Governor’s Conference on 25K Jobs for Rural Utah in January. Their presentation was to secure financial support for the Emery District to complete and initiate CTE and Academic Pathways. One question was “With changes in energy based economy, how do we use this in education?” In follow up communication with Linda Gilmore, the Governor’s assistant, she said it would be under advisement.
Nominations are being accepted for elementary and secondary teacher of the year as well as for classified employee. Scholarships will given to two teachers from each school and administrators for URSA Rural Schools Conference. This will be hosted at Southern Utah University in Cedar City July 11-13. Starting next year, it will rotate between SUU, USU-E and Snow College South. USU-E plans to host in 2019.
A new Emery School District app will be ready for use in March. It will do almost everything that SIS can do and will just need to be downloaded on to a device for use. In looking toward next year, time is needed to see the legislative impact, student enrollment and kindergarten registration as well as retirement and resignation of district employees.