The Allen School Board met at its regular meeting Monday and received updates on everything from bond projects to technological advances at Allen schools. Board Vice-President Frayne Black was absent.

The board first heard from Ed McKerley of MacHill Construction.

New Gymnasium

“We’ve got everything to a point to where we’re probably three weeks away from (a fi re marshal inspection),” McKerley said. “We got the sprinklers done, fire alarm done, electrical is done.”

McKerley said the basketball court is down

“We lack the metal threshold around the court, because we had about five pieces come in that were just ugly,” he said, “and we couldn’t clean them, so they reordered, (which) slows everything down. The scoreboards are up, goals are up. We’re waiting on wall padding, we’re about 10 days out on that.”

McKerley said they will eventually put down sealer, but they must wait until the very end of the project.

Elementary School

McKerley said the elementary school project is the closest one to being completed. He said carpet and rubber baseboards will be delivered this week. “So we’re close,” McKerley said. “All we have to do is just a little bit of touch up and paint (and) install the canopy on the north side.”

McKerley said there is a lot of dirt work to be performed around the elementary, but steady rains have kept it muddy most of the time.

Also, the fence must be re-erected.

Junior High

“The junior high right now as it stands, we’ve got our tape and bed at about 95 percent,” McKerley said. “We have to wait on one of the bathrooms because the electric service goes from the exterior of the old wall into the new building, which is the interior.

So once that’s done, we can finish out the two bathrooms and we’ll be 100 percent.”

McKerley said the plumbing and electrical is at about 100 percent. This week, the grid, wires and tiles for the ceilings will be delivered, and will be installed this weekend, he said.

“Then we can start hanging the rest of the lights, the rest of the grills, and it should move fairly quickly,” McKerley said.

He said they are doing their best to have the junior high building completed by August 1, but couldn’t guarantee it. McKerley was under the impression that classes would begin August 1, however, Superintendent Jeff Hiatt said school begins August 27.

“Oh, that’ll be great, that’ll be great,” McKerley said. “I was under the understanding that it was August 1.”

The board also noted that teachers will need time to move into the classrooms, and get them ready for classes.

“I know you’re going to need a week or two, but we can work around your teachers getting their rooms ready while we’re finishing up,” McKerley said.

“Can they move in before the fire marshal signs off,” Hiatt asked.

“We have to do the fi re marshal early,” McKerley said, “so we’ll have our CO (certificate of occupancy). Once we have our CO, you can start doing your thing.”

Administrative

Reports

Administrative reports were delivered by Amy Mayhue, elementary school principal, Chris Grimm, junior high/high school principal, and by Hiatt.

Mayhue began by speaking about the attendance of summer school.

“We’re ranging between 32 and 37 (students) in summer school,” Mayhue said. “The Choctaw Nation came and visited us Thursday. They gave us the ‘Keep going, doing what you’re doing’ kind of thing. We’ve had the Chickasaw Nation out twice. They came out last week and did archery tag with us. That one stings by the way. Then they (played) cornhole today.”

Mayhue said the kids who are attending summer school are having a blast.

“That’s what we want,” she said. “I was very impressed. I went into Ms. Williams’ class a couple of times, they were writing up a storm, which makes me very pleased. They’re doing some wonderful, wonderful things down there.”

Hiatt mentioned the attendance is better this year than it was last year.

Mayhue said 60 students enrolled, and she would like to know why all 60 aren’t attending.

“I want to know a little bit more about why don’t have 60 (students) here,” she said. “So I’m going to start asking some questions, maybe next year when we do enrollment, I want to get some commitment, because that’s a lot of kids that could be here.”

High school principal Chris Grimm said since the high school doesn’t have summer school, they’ve been working on the schedules for next year and he has been getting acclimated to the system.

He said one thing they’ve been working on is scheduling lunches so that high school, junior high and elementary students won’t have to intermingle with each other.

“We’re going to get it done,” Grimm said. “There’s going to be some compromise, I’m sure, on both sides.”

Hiatt began by praising recently hired coaches.

“I appreciate them jumping right in,” he said. “We’ve had baseball games, basketball camps, you name it, there’s a lot of things going on. All the new people . . . I’ve been really impressed. Just stepping in and getting after it. But that’s what we want. We want good people and hard workers, so I feel blessed there.”

Hiatt spoke about the upcoming teacher pay raises.

“We’re going to have to sit down and fi gure out how we’re going to do that,” he said. “Leave it to Legislature to make it not plain.”

They are also planning for the next year, including having schedules out early.

Hiatt praised board secretary Brenda Robertson and said she has been very busy.

“She’s put in some long hours,” he said. “Not being in this building before, I didn’t know really that this is her busy time, closing out all these accounts and trying to get the fiscal year 2018-19 closed out. I didn’t really know what all that entailed until now. I still don’t know all of it, but it’s a lot. So we can hit the ground July 1 with a new fiscal year ready to go.”

Technology Update

Dr. Mark Jones, IT director, spoke to the board and gave an update concerning technology at Allen Schools.

“I asked Dr. Jones to come here tonight, he’s been here (at Allen Schools) for the last two years. When he got here, where we were as far as technology, as a school, to where we are now two years later, I like where our vision is. So (Dr. Jones) will kind of give you where we were, where we are and where we want to go.”

Jones works part time for the system and his primary job is teaching an online master’s program at East Central University.

“Being able to come over here the last two years and help the school with technology has tremendously helped me in teaching, and being current in the educational technology fi eld,” Jones said. “I was last a K through 12 director in 2005. A little bit has changed since then. So it’s been a huge honor and great opportunity to be over here helping the school with technology and get things more current, modernized.”

Each board member was given presentations concerning technology at the schools, which were prepared by Jones. He spoke about some of the main areas of technology in which he is focusing.

One concerned overhauling the network itself, which included replacing the router, firewall, web fi ltering and upgrading to a much faster internet connection.

Another area concerned network servers, of which two new ones are being installed.

“The main network servers are over 10 years old,” Jones said. “There is as much memory in the Chromebooks that the students use as the servers have. That gives you an idea of just outdated that equipment is. But, it’s served well to last this long.”

Another area concerns Chromebooks.

“We’re getting closer to every classroom having a cart of Chromebooks,” Jones said. “After July 1, we’re ordering some more Chromebooks, so we’re still filling in the gaps that we have. Along with that was getting the licensing for the Chromebooks that were already here, so they could all be centrally managed through the Google admin console. That’s really important when you have a large number of devices like this, they have to be effectively managed.”

Hiatt brought up the fact that this new technology is making school computer labs obsolete, since each student has computer technology at their desks in the form of Chromebooks, etc.

Jones agreed and mentioned a new tool for next year, which will help teachers greatly.

Teachers have told Jones that, “It’s challenging for all students to stay engaged and on task and to use these devices that they’re in the classroom for,” he said.

The new tool --GoGuardian, an education-focused software-as-a-service that offers Chromebook management -- will be implemented at Allen Schools next school year. “It allows the teachers to have, on their screen, a preview of every student’s Chromebook, and what they’re doing,” Jones said. “In addition, it’s recording a timeline of every student’s individual activity. So if they’ve got 10 tabs open, and they keep clicking off every time the teacher’s not looking, and doing something else, that’s all being tracked and recorded. It gives the teacher a lot of other controls. They can click one button, lock all screens, and get all the students’ attention. They can open something on all students’ (Chromebooks). They can pick one student and share their screen to the whole class (like for presentation).”

Jones brought up cyber security.

“I’m sure you all have been hearing in the news the schools being affected by ransomware (malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid),” Jones said. “And other threats that, no matter how rural a school is, everyone is connected to everything on the internet, so we have to do what we can to protect the network, and our users.”

Jones said one thing that is protecting the school’s system from such attacks is that most of the databases and systems are web-based.

Board member Kelly Hurt asked if, when Jones looked at the computer system filtering, he found anything interesting.

“You know, when you look at the system we have now is, we’re able to have layers of fi ltering,” Jones said. There are several layers, not just web-based, according to Jones.

“As you look at all the different things, the students are definitely trying to be creative at doing what you don’t want them doing,” he said.

Jones spoke about an issue with one student’s computer.

“(I looked) at a Chromebook that a student was having an issue with,” Jones said, “and I go to look at the extensions, and it’s loaded full of things like Search Encrypt. And I was like, ‘What are you doing with Search Encrypt? That sounds like you’re trying to hide what you’re searching for on this Chromebook.’ So, in one fail swoop, the benefit of having managed Chromebooks, I was able to turn off all extensions across all students’ Chromebooks.”

Jones said after teachers complained that students were often playing games on their Chromebooks when they shouldn’t have been, he shut off the ability for students to play games on the devices.

“There was nearly a riot amongst the students, one even slipped a note under my door with a little logo, and it said, ‘Bring back ROBLOX,’” Jones said to much laughter from the board. “And they’ll holler across the parking lot, ‘Bring back ROBLOX!’”

Consent Agenda

The board approved the consent agenda, which included the fiscal year 2019 purchase orders and encumbrances; general fund numbers 300 through 319 - ($50,983.29); building fund number 36 - ($1,500); child nutrition fund numbers 53 through 56 - ($29,800); bond fund number 2 - ($16,426); the treasurer’s report, activity fund report, travel request – fiscal year 2020 TR-1 through TR-11; renewal of memberships, services and contracts for fiscal year 2019-2020: OROS (Oklahoma Rural School Association); Pontotoc County Carl Perkins COOP, Kellogg Sovereign (E-Rate); Crawford Consulting; Rosenstein, Fist & Ringold; Oklahoma Schools Insurance Group (OSIG); and East Central Oklahoma On-Line Consortium.

Action Items

The board approved action items, which included blending alternative education with Byng Public Schools for fiscal year 2020.

“Financially, this is a no-brainer,” Hiatt said.

Also approved were open transfers for students in fiscal year 2020.

Executive session

After returning from executive session, the board hired Vannie Bailey to be a part-time elementary special education teacher. The board also hired Julie Knighten as a full-time FACS teacher at the high school.