Discussion at Monday’s Allen School Board meeting about the upcoming Allen High School prom touched some nerves when it was announced that a site which is off campus was already chosen and paid for.

However, the site was eventually approved.

Melissa Sells Junior class sponsor addressed the board concerning prom details.

“This year, the junior class is the biggest class we’ve ever had,” Sells said. “There’s 50-plus kids, and, then with the seniors (37), there was concern with the cafeteria being big enough to hold prom.”

Sells said she and another teacher approached former high school principal Tony Wellington about possible sites off campus and getting the idea on the agenda if the board needed to approve it. She said Wellington gave her the go ahead to search for places and get some pricing information, and to get back to him with the details.

Several places were considered from McAlester to Ada -- including the East Central University’s Ballroom -- but, it, along almost all other places were already booked.

“They (ECU) said schools start calling there in August,” Sells said. “And the Chickasaw buildings, all of those were already booked. There was one, the Lazy A Ranch, it’s between (Allen) and Ada.” Sells said the ranch is near Happyland.

“The owner is Heath Allison whose mom, Ms. Allison, retired from here, and he has weddings there,” Sells said.

She and some other faculty members visited the ranch and said there is a large building there which is nice inside and already has lighting and a sound system so there would be no need for a DJ, which will save $300 to $400. There are also restrooms and a kitchen, she said.

Sells said Allison offered to rent the place out to Allen Schools for $500, which is considerably less than the usual price of $2,000.

She asked Wellington if the matter needed to go before the board, but Wellington gave the go ahead to book it. So a contract was signed to host the prom at the ranch on Friday, May 10.

“(Wellington) picked that date,” Sells said. “We really didn’t want prom that late, but with all the softball and baseball schedules on the weekends, and tournaments, that was about the only day.” the sponsor said otherwise, it would have to have been held in early March.

Board member Jami Rinehart appeared concerned and questioned why the event couldn’t be held in the current gymnasium.

“Why did we have to go off campus,” Rinehart asked.

“We’ve tried the old gym before and with decorations you spend $500-$600 anyway, and, (at the ranch), we won’t have to buy decorations for it,” Sells said. “And it’s usually hot, May 10, the old gym isn’t air conditioned, we’ve had hot issues before.”

Rinehart also asked about everybody being able to make it to the ranch. The school would have to provide transportation for some students.

Rinehart also questioned why it would be held on a Friday. And, even though there is no school that day, parents still have to work and wouldn’t be getting started until evening.

Rinehart wanted the discussion to be moved to executive session. She made a motion to suspend approving the item until after executive session.

Upon returning from executive session, the board voted that the event will take place Friday, May 10^th , at the Lazy A Ranch.

Also upon returning from executive session, the board voted to hire Denise Gonzalez to work in the cafeteria, and voted to have track this spring with Zach Sullivan as coach.

Action items

In action items, the board listened to a presentation of the fiscal year 2018 financial audit, which was delivered via telephone by Courtney Odom from the offi ces of Kerry John Patten, CPA, a fi nancial firm that specializes in the auditing of governmental entities such as school districts, counties and towns.

The board was previously given a booklet which detailed the audit. Odom went over the booklet page by page giving a recap of each fund -- general fund, child nutrition fund, etc.

In the end, the agency didn’t find anything egregious.

However, Odom detailed the last page -- page 34 -which concerned comments and recommendations by the agency.

“These are areas which we noted during the audit which we felt like were significant to you (the board), but were not either signifi cant deficiencies or material weaknesses,” Odom said. “You have two comments in your audit. Both of the comments are lengthy. And both of them are kind of specific to your district.”

In the first comment, Odom mentioned the matter of the board entering into an agreement to purchase land for the new gymnasium, which was purchased from Danny McDougal, and Allen School Board president Robert Hammonds. McDougal owned 75 percent of the land, while Hammonds owned the other 25 percent.

Hammonds stated at a meeting in 2018 that it was a mistake and he was donating the money back to the school.

“Obviously, Oklahoma state law requires that no board of education of any school district should make a contract with any of its members,” Odom said. “The money was paid back. You’ll notice that in the comments, but we just recommend that you review this finding (and create) policies and procedures to ensure that contracts with board members are prohibitive. And, we recommend that authorities review this transaction to determine if any further action is warranted.”

Odom said the second comment dealt with the firm’s view of the school system’s general fund purchase orders.

“Whenever we come in to audit the purchase orders, we collect a sample of purchases based on dollar amounts, based on any unusual transactions and so forth. Of the first orders that we selected to sample, we found six that were for several large dollar amounts, which were capital expenditures. We’ve noted all the purchase orders there along with the amounts and what they were for.”

Odom briefly went over some of the amounts, $36,000 for electrical work for the football fieldhouse, and $42,000 for drywall and paint.

“Essentially, we spent several capital expenditures which should be coming from the building fund, not out of the general fund. So we recommend the board implement policies and procedures to ensure that all capital expenditures are not extended from the school system’s general fund, but from the correct and appropriate fund, such as the building or the bond fund at the school.”

Odom ended the teleconference by giving high praise to board Secretary Brenda Robertson.

“Brenda, I appreciate you so much,” Odom said. “Brenda goes out of her way whenever come in to do the audit to help us. She wears a lot of hats at your district. I want to make sure you know she really is an excellent help to us whenever we come in to do that, so thank you very much, and thank you all.”

Newest board member Jason Watkins asked if the board needed to follow up on the firm’s recommendations before voting to approve or disapprove of the audit.

Board Vice President Jeff Maloy said no, that the board can approve or disapprove of the audit at the meeting, but must later make sure the superintendent creates policies to address the two recommendations.

The board will then later approve or disapprove of the policies.

The board approved the audit.

Other action items

There was discussion amongst the board to approve Jessy Harris as mentor teacher for first-year teacher Cassidy Malm, and Debra Lewis as mentor teacher for first-year teacher Alexis Huffman.

“First-year teachers have to have a mentor teacher assigned to them,” Hiatt said. “Some schools pay their mentor teachers, I don’t think we do. It’s not that big a deal, because our teachers work together anyway. It just has to be approved by the board.”

The item was approved.

The last item was a discussion and vote to approve a contract with Crawford Consulting LLC to consult on the school system’s finances. The matter was approved.

Administrative

reports

Interim Superintendent Jeff Hiatt and acting elementary school Principal Mary Pat Sappenfield delivered administrative reports. Hiatt is also acting high school principal.

Jeff Hiatt

Hiatt addressed the board saying that he began advertising last week for the elementary and high school principal positions.

“I’ve got 17 or 18 applicants already,” Hiatt said. “I will try to keep you updated on that. I put the cutoff date as March

1. I figure when we get close to March 1, we can look at it and see if we need to keep it open any longer, or who we have at that time.”

Hiatt said he met with representatives of MacHill and the architect involved in the building of the new gymnasium and the remodeling of the junior high school.

“We talked about the gym and the junior high,” Hiatt said. “Right now, we’re ready to move our six classrooms out of the junior high when we’re called on. We’ve got classes ready to go, it’s just a matter of when they tell us. It could be any day, they tell us.”

Hiatt spoke about the new basketball court and what it will look like. He said the court will be made of maple wood, which will be light in color.

Hiatt told the board the school system had Ada police come out and have discussion with students and faculty concerning cyber bullying and cell phones.

“It was very interesting,” Hiatt said. “I don’t know if your kids came home and told you anything, but it was very eye-opening for us adults that were there, me anyway. He’s coming back on February 19 and doing an assembly on teen dating. There’s laws. An 18 year old dating a 15 year old, they need to know this stuff. So we’re trying to provide as much information to our kids as we can.”

Hiatt spoke to the board about the schedule for the Allen FFA.

“The FFA is going to be at the State Capitol February 19,” he said. “We’ve got the Pontotoc County Fair coming up February 27 through March 2. That’s big, we’re going to have a lot of kids involved in that, and with 4H.”

Hiatt said JOM will visit March 5 for stickball night.

He told the board CPR training is scheduled for February 25 for senior students.

“That’s a law,” Hiatt said. “All seniors have to take this class and it has to go on their transcript.”

Mary Pat Sappenfield

Sappenfield said the schools are having to submit civil rights data to the government. She said no names are involved, just students’ races, ethnicities and gender. She said anyone can check out the data at https://ocrdata.ed.gov/.

Sappenfield addressed the board concerning a grant.

“Our schools receive the Striving Readers Grant,” Sappenfield said. “It’s a multi-year grant. And this year, during the year, teachers have continued to receive professional development training through some agreements with that grant. This semester, teachers are having opportunities to have a one-on-one dialogue through Webex, which is almost face to face.”

Consent agenda

The board approved the consent agenda which included the fiscal year 2018-2019 purchase orders and encumbrances; the general fund number 236 through 245 ($6,194.38); building fund number 27 through 29 ($5,610); child nutrition Fund number 42 ($8,000); the treasurer’s report; activity fund report; approving math and science credits for Allen students completing courses at Pontotoc Technology Center for the school year (2018-19) ending June 30, 2019; the supplemental appropriation to the general fund for fiscal year 2019; and declaring surplus property.