Business manager explains fines to school board

At the April 16 Hot Springs County School Board Trustees meeting, business manager Jessica Benefiel gave the financial report and discussed some expenditures that included new vehicles and computers.

Benefiel also said, “A little further down the report on page four, you’ll see kind of a big one that’s a little over $37,000 to the IRS. That is an issue I’ve had since back in September. In September, that is, every month we make an IRS payroll tax payment to the IRS. And that month, back in September, it didn’t work all the way through the submission process and I pulled that back up, and I did notice that the print out a backup documentation does say ‘pending’ on that. It doesn’t say ‘confirm’. Our office just didn’t get quite through that entire process. We caught it in December and remedied that. And then at the end of January, received a letter from the IRS saying, you’ve got these late payment fees. So if you have a response to that, provide it in writing by X date. So we did that with the explanation. This is the first time in years we’ve been late on payment. Caught it. Made the payment already before you guys sent the letter. Is there a way to waive these fees? Got a letter back a couple weeks later saying, ‘No. Tough noogies,’ and so spent hours over multiple days trying to actually speak to someone and we did get to speak to someone at one point who needed to pass this to a different department. And two hours later, ‘due to high call volumes here….’ so it’s been a pretty frustrating process. And we kind of had to at some point cut our productivity losses and not pick the fight of the IRS, I guess. So, that’s an unfortunate one. But that’s what that one is. That’s something that you wouldn’t usually see on there that I wanted to point out.”

Benefiel also mentioned some new vehicles or buses that will have camera systems installed and that the facilities department has been working on increasing efficiencies in their building. Benefiel added, “I am super happy to report that our gas electricity costs are the lowest that they have been in at least three years.”

The board discussed calculators and asked who pays for them, the school or the students? They also discussed caps and gowns for graduation and hardships for some students to get them. Older caps and gowns can be donated back to the school for reuse. 

The board also discussed some certification matters. Trustee Bethany Webber asked, “The misassignment payment to the Wyoming Department of Education. Please explain that $8,000.”

Benefiel replied, “If somebody were to teach or coach something that they didn’t have the proper certification in, that’s when that would come in. That’s a personnel conversation. But we had a couple of coaches who just didn’t [get completely certified].”

Trustee Clay VanTwerp said, “Mr. Chair, I just guess I really appreciate your transparency with the late payment for the IRS. I really appreciate your handling the way you did. I just want to make sure that you have something in place that won’t happen to you again.”

Benefiel replied, “For sure. It’s just one of those where you have to click through three buttons, and I should have caught it as I went through those.”

Trustee VanTwerp said, “Thank you very much.”

Benefiel and the board spoke about different issues regarding the school district funding model and how it affects teacher pay. The board then approved several different policies after some discussion. 

Benefiel presented to the board their next year’s budget for informational purposes. She said, “Wyoming’s state statute requires a preliminary budget to be presented to the board before May 15, and this is presented for your informational. No action is required at this time. And the final budget will be presented to you for your action at your July meeting. And this budget takes into account the previously discussed TSAs, the sunset of Esser funding in September and or decreased ADM. Insurance rates are expected to increase by a small percentage, but we won’t know exactly until the dual meeting tomorrow.”

Benefiel added, “This budget reflects an increase similar to last year. We haven’t made any motions on that insurance cover, anything like that. in the general support category, which is your 3000 level functions, that reflects an improvement in efficiencies and a move to leasing buses versus purchasing upon delivery from the dealer. That would allow for better alignment between what we pay out for buses in a year and what we are reimbursed for those buses the very next year.”

Benefiel also discussed they have a budgeting tool which they can put in projections, but the final funding model with all their adjustments for education margins has not yet been released. Benefiel said, “These are for preliminary numbers, and I’ll continue to work through the finalization process as the fiscal year comes to an end.”

During their celebrations presentatoions, Speech and Debate head coach Lyle Wiley said he nominated assistant coach Alyssa Brown as Assistant Coach of the Year for the Wind River district, which was a very competitive voting category at the Wind River District Tournament, a national qualifier. Wiley added, “There were several assistant coaches nominated, but Alyssa won assistant coach of the year for the district, and it’s a well-deserved award. Alyssa is an amazing assistant coach.”

During the student trustee report, Jarek Jeffs said spring golf started a few weeks ago as well as track. Jeffs said, “The team is competing well. We won our first meet since 2010…We’ve had numerous prequels from different athletes. They’ve all already qualified for state in the regionals.” Their home meet will be on May 3 and the home middle school meet is May 4. Also, student council elections are starting to run up again. Speeches will be on April 25 and there will be fundraisers going on with the Honor Council. Jeffs added that FFA just had their state convention. The team got fifth overall. And the juniors got their ACT scores back. Another test will be on April 23.

Dustin Hunt gave a brief superintendent’s report. He said graduation is May 19 and scholarship night is May 14 at 6:30 p.m. 

When chairman Sherman Skelton opened the meeting for public comments, a concerned parent stepped up to the podium and said, “My name is Jamie Stothart. I’m addressing the discipline handbook item. Recently, and I will admit, I’ve had three go through TMS at this point. So I haven’t really ever looked at it very thoroughly. An incident happened recently that had me looking at it very thoroughly. And I’m questioning, is the manner in which the discipline is written, the verbiage that’s used, is it appropriate for fifth and sixth graders?”

Stothart continued and said, “I have a sixth grader and a fifth grader in my house, and I asked them, do you know what the word vulgar means? They don’t. I asked them, do you know what the word insubordination means? They don’t know what that means. I asked them, do you know what racial is? You kind of know what that is. Do you know what harassment is? Sort of. They, of course, know what disreputable behavior is. They know what displays of affection are. There are parts of this that they do understand, but the parts that they don’t understand make it, in my opinion, that they can misunderstand.”

Stothart added, “They can think that something’s okay because they don’t know that it’s vulgar. They don’t know what flagrant is. They don’t know what a deliberate action is. I can’t, as a parent, explain what a deliberate action is. That would warrant 1 to 5 days of out-of-school suspension. I don’t know what that is. There’s a bullying CVD with an asterisk on it, but I don’t really see where that’s defined in this. I don’t know what that is. Because I sat my son down and I was going through this, going over it like we were supposed to, and I didn’t. And I was like, there are things in here that I don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t know what it means. And I really believe that the verbiage used can lend itself to adult interpretations of the words or the actions, and those adult interpretations can be applied to ten, 11 and nearly 12-year-olds.”

Stothart explained, “And those kids don’t know what’s going on. They’re like, I don’t know what vulgar is, but okay. If they don’t understand the words, how are they going to understand why they’re being disciplined? Can they connect their actions to the word so that they understand I’m not supposed to be doing this? I don’t believe that the manner in the way that these grades are lends itself to consistency for the discipline, either because an adult can interpret the words used in this discipline grade in one way and then another, an adult can say, well, I don’t think that’s vulgar either. They’re not defined. These words aren’t defined. I guess if you want to go to what a legal definition of that is, you could. But I looked it up. I looked up the legal definition of vulgar.”

At this point, the three-minute timer beeped. 

Trustee Nichole Weyer responded, “I just wanted to say, that it’s really helpful when parents come in and speak with us, especially with something as clear as that because it’s really easy for us to go back and look at the handbook and make sure that the wording that we’re using, makes sense to everyone reading it. So I actually really appreciate you coming in and saying that we don’t have a lot of parents that do that. So thank you. That’s very helpful.”

Trustee Joe Martinez said, “Mr. Chair, I would propose giving her one additional minute for some additional information. I think what she’s providing is relevant.”

Chairman Sherman Skelton agreed and gave Stothart permission to continue to speak.

Stothart added to her statement and said, “There is one more item that I wanted to discuss. If you refer to discipline grade level two, if you strike another student in Thermopolis Middle School, you will get one day of in-school suspension for your first offense is what I’m assuming there’s one, two, three, four, five numbers mean, and it includes lunch and learn with a social counselor or a Friday focused session. If flagrant, vulgar or deliberate action warrants 1 to 5 days of out-of-school suspension, as a parent, I have a high school student that sat with us reading this to his sixth-grade brother. Guess what he said? One guess.” 

Stothart added, “I don’t think I ever have to say it. If you only get one day of in-school suspension for striking another student, but you will get 1 to 5 days of OSS for failure or deliberate action. What do you think a high school kid is going to tell? Or what do you think a sixth grader is going to take away from that?”

One of the trustees replied, “To hit.”

Stothart continued and said, “Yeah, I will fully admit that that is what that got said. You would have been in less trouble if you had slapped him. And I’m sorry, I apologize.”

Chairman Skelton closed public comments as there were no more. The board then went into executive session to discuss a personal student matter.

After the executive session, the board returned and held a discussion about the importance of disciplinary action being consistent across the different schools and that it is the principal in each building who handles the disciplinary action, not the superintendent or the school board. They also discussed that it is timely to address their policy handbook for the matter.

Trustee Nicole Weyer said, “Mr. Chair, I think this was a perfect example of what we do as a board. We are specifically a policy board. And, you know, that’s something that’s in our area to make recommending actions. And so when the parent came to us and said that there were some discrepancies in there that she would like to see change, that’s something that we can look at. And I appreciate her knowledge of what we actually do as a board, because I think a lot of times people think that we’re in charge of things that we’re absolutely not in charge of. So, you know, we don’t micromanage various things, but that it’s something that we absolutely can do and talk about and make positive changes with.”

Trustee Weyer also said, “Mr. Chair, just so any of the public knows if they’re listening, I know in every grade the teachers go through that handbook with the kids at their level of language. So although you might not have every example of what those things pertain to, the kids are explained to it in, in every grade level what that looks like and why we have it so I do think talking about it at home, talking about the school, reminding them if there’s an issue, I think that’s all great. “

When the board went into executive session a second time, upon their return the board voted and passed the approval of a student’s request. The board then went through their committee reports. Chairman Skelton also gave a shout out to the students and staff who have been helping out with band and music. 

Curriculum & Professional Learning Community Specialist, Breez Daniels said, “Two new grants that just have been awarded recently. One is going to be a STEM one week summer camp for grades three through eight. We already have six teachers signed up just in the last couple of days to help with that. Sherry Pebbles is going to be our coordinator. It’s all through Central Wyoming College, and they’ll actually be the ones paying the teachers.”

Daniels added, “But it’s a really kind of fun opportunity. It’ll be a one week, all day camp. And then, we also received a recent grant on summer tutoring in math and reading. And we’re put out to work today for teachers to start signing up for that. It’s going to be a little bit different. We’re going to try to match, teachers with families and make it more of a, individualized tutoring experience where, if you have a third grader and a fifth grader, that that teacher might even come to your home, or if you’re comfortable with that, or you can go meet them in their classroom or be specific to your kids. They’ll be about a 30 to 90 minute tutoring per student. We’re trying to pair people up.”