County schools board updated on Soulsbyville

The Tuolumne County Board of Education heard an update on Soulsbyville School at Monday night’s regular board meeting and also discussed the H1N1 influenza and participation in a county-wide shared services summit.

“Our enrollment is up, surprisingly,” said Soulsbyville School Superintendent Jeff Winfield.
  

There are 30 more students in the 2009-10 school year than were enrolled a year ago, most of them kindergartners, Winfield said.

Kindergarten has three classes while all other grade levels only have two classes each, he said.

Winfield said during the last school year, due to a reduced budget, five teaching positions were lost, but with the extra kindergartners, the district was able to bring one teacher back.

The school has 545 students, he said.

The district was also able to keep a full-time music and band teacher, Winfield said.

Winfield said the Soulsbyville district, like every other school district, isn’t getting the budgetary answers from the state it needs.

“Everybody’s doing a little more, with less,” he said, adding that the Parent Teacher Association has stepped up its fundraising and is helping to keep school morale high during the difficult financial times.

In other schools business, Jeanie Smith, administrative assistant to the county superintendent, reported the H1N1 influenza vaccination program will continue through next week.

The vaccination clinics, a partnership with the Tuolumne County Public Health Department, are going as planned, Superintendent of Schools Joe Silva said.

“It is controversial, but I can tell you it’s going very well,” Silva told the board.

Smith said nearly 50 percent of students in the county are being vaccinated and that Dr. Todd Stolp, county public health officer, has been “tenacious” about getting H1N1 vaccine for the county.

The board also discussed participation in a county-wide shared services meeting, organized by the Sonora Elementary School board of trustees. It is scheduled in January 2010 to discuss ways schools can collaborate on services and save money.

The board will send trustees Joe von Herrmann and new trustee Sharon Mele.

Von Herrmann made sure the board knew his thoughts on consolidation before agreeing to go.

“I’m not real big on the idea to begin with ... but maybe when I get there I’ll hear something different,” von Herrmann said.    

County education trustees also voted to accept a new Student Attendance Review Board, consisting of 15 community, law enforcement, mental health and welfare representatives. SARB becomes involved when students are truant and works to get them back in school.