Zack Sisk

The Saint Joseph School District's Assessment Plan is designed to gather meaningful data to enhance teaching and educational programs and ensure continuous growth for all students. It focuses on using a broad range of assessments to identify student strengths and areas for growth, evaluate instructional effectiveness, and inform decision-making for various stakeholders. Key priorities include strengthening coherence across curriculum, instruction, and assessment, emphasizing assessment as a classroom learning indicator, and utilizing detailed analysis methods like value-added, comparative, and trend analysis. The plan also addresses ethical testing practices and the comprehensive communication of assessment results to foster student success and program improvement.

The Professional Learning Plan for the Saint Joseph School District serves as a comprehensive roadmap for enhancing educator effectiveness and improving student learning outcomes. It outlines the district's mission, vision, and core values, emphasizing a learning focus on data-driven, targeted, and content-specific professional development. The plan establishes an instructional coherence framework built upon shared understanding of standards, strong content knowledge, intentional resource utilization, and high-leverage instructional practices. It details the Professional Development Committee's mission, goals (which include a comprehensive philosophy, collective responsibility for student performance, a continuous improvement cycle, and structured implementation with reflection), and responsibilities. The plan also covers budgeting guidelines, specific evaluation metrics focusing on academic achievement, student readiness, implementation observations, and staff feedback, and includes recommendations for professional learning supports and compensations for the 2026-2027 academic year.

The board meeting included several student recognition events, including the Central High School math team's successful state competition performance, FBLA student state placements, the Altech Innovation Challenge winning project by Benton High School students, Make 48 competition honors, and the recognition of recipients for the seal of biliteracy. Public comment focused on teacher concerns regarding the preservation of the career ladder structure, teacher retention, and compensation.

The committee reviewed the state legislative budget impact, specifically focusing on the underfunding of the foundation formula and its consequences for district revenue. Key discussions included the five-year financial forecast, projections for operating fund balances, strategies for expenditure reductions through attrition and building consolidations, and the ongoing efforts to modernize the funding formula. The meeting also addressed the need to build up reserves while managing budget deficits, and highlighted a new reporting format for upcoming budgets.

The board meeting focused on the review and approval of a contract with Leader Construction for the battery wall project. Key discussion topics included the project's financial components, specifically the general conditions costs and the management fee percentage. The board also reviewed the project timeline, including the contract duration and its extension beyond the completion date to allow for final punch list items. Additionally, the process for selecting a construction manager agent, which was based on a Request for Qualifications rather than traditional bids, was discussed and subsequently approved.