From the School Board Meeting 7/10/2025

 

The Grove School Board met on July 10, 2025.  Once again the agenda had included valuable information as to financial reports and other items. Go  to the meeting date  for the July 10th meeting and open the agenda.  You will find the pdf symbol for several items..

 

 

 

 

Here's how to get to the agenda. 

Go to ridgerunners.net and click on the magnifying glass in the red box at the upper right.  

Type School Board in the search box. 

Click on the words School Board that are in red.

You will see Board Agendas on the left.  Click on that. The screen below will come up.  

Follow the directions that appear there and you will start receiving notifications for the meetings.  The agenda with pdfs will be displayed when you click on "Agenda" to the right side.  

 

Of special interest was the Superintendent's report.  Once again Superintendent Dodson graciously supplied a written report so I can share it with you.  As far as I can determine, this is not common practice.  His wanting to communicate with the community is an admirable trait. 

Superintendent's Report

1. The HS roofing project is underway. For the past week the old shingles are being removed and an ice and water shield is being installed to weather proof prior to the metal roofing installation. The project is on schedule. The LE roofing project is scheduled to begin any day now.
2. The online enrollment is going well. We hired Teresa Rockers to run our student information system from the administration office. She has been assisting parents with the online process of returning students. New to Grove students can enroll in person at the PAC on July 22 & 23 from 9am-3pm.
3. On July 24 I will meet with Grove Police chief, Mark Morris to begin planning for our next district-wide emergency drill. We meet often throughout the school year to discuss potential emergency situations. This meeting will begin the process for a mock drill to better prepare our staff and students for a future crisis situation. The training at the PAC is unrelated to my meeting with Chief Morris. On July 28, Deputy Sheriff, Alex Graham from Minnesota will present "Emerging Drug Trends Training." He will address drug identification, signs and symptoms, drug detection, and current drug trends. This is open to the public. Several area administrators, law enforcement, counselors, parents and community members will be in attendance at no cost.
4. Last week, State Schools Superintendent Ryan Walters issued a news release and an email to Oklahoma parents saying the Oklahoma State Department of Education will require school districts to provide student meals at no charge to parents beginning with the 2025-2026 school year. The release and email threatened administrative cost cuts and audits for districts that don’t comply with the proposed mandate, listed a variety of updated health standards for school meals, and promised new rules regarding physical activity for students and time allotted for students to eat school meals.

• No emergency rule has been approved or formally proposed. For this proposal to be enforceable, it must go through the emergency rulemaking process and receive approval from the Oklahoma State Board of Education.
• Grove, as well as most districts, have already planned their academic programming and hired staff for the 2025-26 fiscal year based on budget projections.
• Oklahoma already has caps on administrative spending, requiring districts to be in compliance with existing financial transparency standards.
• Several area districts already provide meals for all students at no cost under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Eligibility is based on the number of students who qualify for Free/Reduced lunches. In the past, Grove has not qualified for CEP because of the limited number of students who are directly certified for free meals. 
• I have been in contact with the State Child Nutrition Program Specialist to consider other options since Walters' announcement came the June 30 deadline to apply.
• We all agree that providing healthy meals for all students can have a positive impact on their education and overall wellbeing. For years, Grove has provided a free breakfast for all students. Grove currently has over 750 students who do not qualify for Free/Reduced lunches. 750 multiplied by an average $3.25 lunch equals $2,437.50 daily cost. If we make the decision to provide free lunches for those who do not qualify, the potential cost would be 167 days of school multiplied by $2,437.50 daily cost to equal $407,062.50. This is being asked without any increase in funding. I have been in contact with State Representative, Josh West over this matter. I will continue to work to find a remedy to best serve our students. 

Lastly, the various resignations are for a variety of reasons. Several were hired last month to new positions within the district and resigned from their current position to allow for hiring new employees in their old spot. Some took new jobs outside of the education business and one took a job in another district. 

 

 Thank you for taking time to read my blog.  If you have any questions you would appreciate being addressed, please email me at pamsheartart@boltfiber.net and I will see what I can do.

Pam Jarrett