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Schools

All Eyes on the 2011-2012 School Year

The University City Board of Education spent Thursday night preparing the district for the upcoming school year.

The University City Board of Education bid farewell to the 2010-2011 school year while saying hello to the 2011-2012 year on Thursday night.

Superintendent Joylynn Wilson Pruitt began the meeting by congratulating the (UCHS) on Wednesday night. She also thanked the parents, faculty and staff for a tremendous school year, wishing them all a safe and wonderful summer as well.

The board stood to recognize outstanding UCHS students. Luke Babbich was singled out for his participation in the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) STARS program. During the summer, Babbich will take part in a research project with UMSL faculty on the history and future of space mission failures.

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Two school-sponsored groups from UCHS were honored as well. The Latin Club was recognized for its phenomenal showing at the recent state competition. The school board's student representative Caroline Martin was among those honored.

The board also recognized two students who competed in the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) state competition.

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Meanwhile, the board announced that it had decided to make changes to the current set-up of the meeting's citizen comments. At future board meetings, there will be 30 minutes before and after the board meeting for citizens to express their concerns to the board.

The meeting focused primarily on renewing contracts and adapting curriculum for the upcoming school year. The board first approved the a new teacher salary contract that assistant superintendent and head of human resources Dr. Darryl O. Cobb and Cheryl Carr of the University City Federation of Teachers (UCFT) negotiated. The deal gives salary increases of 2.5% to faculty and staff making less then $15 an hour, while staff making $15.01 or more will receive a 2.25% increase. In addition, the district will move from three to 3.5 social workers as it looks to fill a part-time position.

"I think this will help the district a lot. The high school has a lot of issues, and not having a social worker there every day does not work," Carr said.

The board approved the deal, congratulating the district's administration for proposing the pay raise as well.

Tanya Rodriguez, the district's food service director and contact with Chartwells, the company that provides the school lunches, brought before the board the renewed contract with Chartwells, which included proposed lunch price increases.

As part of the Hunger Free Kids Act passed by the federal government, districts that do not meet certain thresholds must raise their lunch prices to better handle students whose families are at an economic disadvantage. The district must raise their lunch prices by $.05, but the school administration has proposed $.10 to help the district meet the threshold sooner. This would bring in an estimated $8,000.

However, despite misgivings over the price increase, the motion was approved by the board. The board also chose to approve the new employee benefits package put together by the district's chief financial officer, Scott Hafertepe and Dr. Cobb.

The board ended the night by approving the revised curriculum for career education, 9-12 communication arts and a portion of the K-12 fine arts curriculum.

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