Concrete work to happen at transportation building

The Mount Vernon Community School District will be completing concrete work at the transportation building this fall.

According to superintendent Matt Leeman, the work is looking to address a number of dips in the concrete that are three to five inches of drop.

“It’s making it hard to get buses in and out of the building,” Leeman said. The bid was from Camacho for roughly $25,000 to replace the concrete utilizing SAVE/PPEL funds.

Board member Lance Schoff asked if there was any plan on moving the transportation building in the next 10 years.

Leeman said with the bonding capacity of the district tied up at the moment, that doesn’t seem likely and it makes sense to make the repair with concrete to give more life to the building than revisiting the issue in two or three years from now for more asphalt work.

DCAP, EBR reporting

The board also heard reports on the district’s career and academic planning (DCAP) and the evidence based reporting (EBR) grading from Michelle Boyden.

On DCAP, Boyden said the purpose is to help students grow in knowledgeof what professions work for them through students knowing their interests, knowing their potential career goals, opportunities to explore different career options, know the salaries and develop plans following high school.

One of the changes they will be implementing to the DCAP this year is giving students an opportunity to reflect on what they’ve learned with their experiences, especially during J-Term where many students take part in internships.

Teachers will finalize their new DCAP plans in November from J-Term, and then administer that new reflection post during J-Term. The group will then take what they learned in J-Term and those reflections as a chance to review feedback and improve in the future.

Part of the DCAP plans that parents participate in happens during course registration, when students and parents determine which classes students should register to fit with their academic goals.

On EBR, Boyden said work was ongoing to take Matt Townsley’s recommendations for improvements back to the program. The goal is students will develop transferrable skills from the learning.

“Part of that is realizing that if you want to write an effective argument, you have to know a lot about the topic you’re arguing about,” Boyden said. “If you’re writing a paper on a topic, you likewise need to know a lot about the topic.”