SROs approved for Shawnee

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CAMDEN — Preble Shawnee Local School District will have a School Resource Officer (SRO) in all three of its buildings this school year.

During the board of education meeting on Thursday, July 19, members approved SRO contracts with the Village of Camden and the Preble County Sheriff’s Department.

Camden Police Department will be providing a School Resource Officer to Camden Elementary, with the Preble County Sheriff’s Department providing SROs to both West Elkton Intermediate and the Preble Shawnee Jr./Sr. High School.

“The only difference between what we sent Camden and what they came back with, we’re allowed to contract with the Sheriff’s Department to provide SROs, but we are not allowed to contract with a local police department. We must contract with the village, in parenthesis Chief Matt Spurlock, instead of just Chief Matt Spurlock,” Superintendent Matt Bishop said.

“For the Sheriff’s Department, in the contract there is an estimate of $150,000, but we won’t know until they hire those two officers. I did get word from the Sheriff that they are on track for hiring, but they may not be here right when school begins.

“They are working hard to get the positions filled, they know that this is important to all of the schools to have these positions filled.”

In other business, board received an update on a program called eSpark.

ESpark has been working within the Preble Shawnee Local School District (PSLSD) to help teachers differentiate instruction with their students. Jamie Ranly, Curriculum Director with PSLSD, attended the meeting to give the board updates on “exciting things” happening within the district.

This past year, eSpark was funded through an anonymous donor. Ranly explained, this is a computer based application for students to use with iPads. As they worked throughout the year, Ranly was able to correlate data and see student improvement.

“eSpark is great because they do the data analysis for us. So, three times a year we get to meet with them and discuss the performance,” Ranly said. “Just a quick overview — we have kids 539 students grades K-4 participating in eSpark – that is across 25 classrooms at both Camden and West Elkton.

“What eSpark does is, assist the teachers in differentiating the instruction for the students. So, when you have 25 students in a classroom, you can have 25 students at varying levels. That is a very difficult thing for a teacher to do, to be able to differentiate so they are meeting the needs of every student. We’re very lucky to have this piece to help with that.”

She added, “We’re seeing an average of 17 percent growth from their pre and post quiz.”

Ranly also updated the board on ALEKS and MAP.

During the report of the superintendent and the consent agenda, the board approved a revised resolution requesting the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission establish a new Scope, Estimated Basic Project Cost, and Local Share in the Classroom Facilities Assistance Program.

Bishop added, “As you may remember, we passed this resolution in January. Since our timeline has been pushed back a bit, we need to pass a new resolution to get the OFCC to approve our Master Plan at their July 2019 meeting. They will re-establish our state versus local share percentages, evaluate our enrollment data, and work with us during the Community Engagement Process to get a new master plan approved.”

Preble Shawnee Board of Education will meet for its regular meeting on Thursday, Aug. 23 at 6 p.m. in the Board Office.

By Kelsey Kimbler

[email protected]

Reach Kelsey Kimbler at 937-683-4061 or on Twitter @KKimbler_RH

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