$ .50 LEVY INCREASE ON THE FEBRUARY BALLOT

The Avenue City R-IX Board of Education voted unanimously to run a $ .50 levy increase on February 8, 2005.

The school district has deficit spent the last four years, with this year’s deficit being

$ 30,798 in the operating funds. The debt service fund did increase by $ 36,100, but these funds can only be used to pay off the bond indebtedness on the bond issues. We were anticipating a larger deficit, but you probably remember that the Governor released monies in April of 2004 that he had released earlier. You might also remember that the Legislature appropriated $ 143 million of new monies for the 2004-05 school year. Since over 100 school districts passed levies in April of 2004 and other factors in the state foundation formula, Avenue City R-IX will actually receive less state monies in 2004-05 as compared to 2003-04. Our best guess at this point is approximately $ 7,500 less monies if the proration factors end up being .87 & .82. We will not know for sure until the June 2005 state payment. But you can see that this will add to our deficit situation.

We feel that Avenue City is providing a quality education for the children of the school district. State and Federal reports and testing results verify this. The Board does not want to decrease services to our children, but it is just like at home – you can’t keep spending more money than you make or take in.

The school will be asking for help from parents and the community to help pass this levy increase. There will be a meeting on December 13, 2004 at 7:00 p.m. in the school’s music/art room to organize a plan to provide information to our patrons. If you want to help but cannot make it to the meeting, please call the school. If you have any questions on this, please give me a call or stop by the school.

AUDIT REVIEW OF THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF AVENUE CITY R-IX SCHOOL DISTRICT

Enclosed is a sheet titled “Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balances” that gives a financial analysis of the Avenue City R-IX School for the 2003-04 school year. William White, CPA, performs the school audit and he provides this information for the school district and the patrons.

You will notice on the last two lines of this sheet that our balances in our operating funds (general, special, and capital projects) decreased by $ 30,798 even though the overall balance increased by $ 5,302. The reason for this is that the debt service fund increased by $ 36,100. Since debt service money can only be spent for paying off bond issue debts, these monies cannot be used for operating expenses. The increase in assessed valuation (new housing etc.) is helping obtain more monies in our debt service fund and should either help us pay off the bond issues at an earlier date or decrease the debt service levy in the near future. Even though the deficit in the operating funds was not as great as anticipated at the beginning of the year, we are still deficit spending ($ 30,798) in those funds. This is the fourth year in a row that the school district has deficit spent in the operating funds and this is a concern we will need to address. If you have any questions on this audit report, please let us know.

STUDENTS NOT ATTENDING AVENUE CITY R-IX WHO SHOULD BE

We have been in contact with the St. Joseph School District about students attending school in their district boundaries. As you know schools are paid by student count and this dictates how much State monies a school district receives. By law a student must attend the district they live in unless they pay tuition to the district they attend outside of the district they live in. If a parent is an employee or substitute in a district, outside the district the child lives in, that child can attend such district tuition free. Also a student can attend a private or parochial school in any location since they pay tuition to attend these institutions. You may have heard that trading or swapping students has been done in the past, but this is not a legal practice.

If you know of any student that lives in our school district but attends another school district illegally, we would appreciate it if you would let us know. St. Joseph and Avenue City R-IX are working together to try to alleviate these situations. We will need the help of patrons in order to monitor this situation. If you have any questions on this matter, please let us know.

Public Notice

Below is a public notice that we are required to share with patrons of our community:

There is another sheet enclosed that is a public notice for special education purposes.

Our district is required to inform you of certain information that you, according to “The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-110, have the right to know.

Upon your request, our district is required to provide to you in a timely manner, the following information:

· Whether the teacher has met state qualification and licensing criteria for the grade levels and subject areas in which the teacher provides instruction.

· Whether the teacher is teaching under emergency or other provisional status through which state qualification or licensing criteria have been waived.

· Whether your child is provided services by paraprofessionals and, if so, their qualifications.

· What baccalaureate degree major the teacher has and any other graduate certification or degree held by the teacher, and the field of discipline of the certification.

In addition to the information that parents may request, districts must provide to each individual parent:

· Information on the achievement level of the parent’s child in each of the state academic assessments as required under this part; and

· Timely notice that the parent’s child has been assigned, or has been taught for four or more consecutive weeks by, a teacher who is not highly qualified.

AVENUE CITY R-IX RECEIVES PERFECT SCORE AGAIN ON THE ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT

The students and staff at Avenue City R-IX received another perfect score on our APR (Annual Performance Report) for the 2003-04 school year. This report comes from the State Department in the fall of each year. The test covers many performance areas, such as: MAP Test, Reading Index for grades 3 & 7, Attendance, and GPA. There are 54 points possible and Avenue City R-IX received all 54 points.

You may have noticed in the St. Joseph News Press in August, that they ran an article on how schools performed at the Federal level with NCLB (No Child Left Behind) requirements. This report is called “Adequate Yearly Progress” and the Federal government in Communication Arts and Math sets a proficiency benchmark. The

Proficient benchmark for Communication Arts for this year was 20.4% and Avenue City received a 42.9%. The proficient benchmark for Math for this year was 10.3% and Avenue City received a 41.9%. Thus you can see that our students perform very well at the Federal level also.

Again, we are extremely pleased with the results that our students and staff received this year. It takes a commitment from students, teachers, parents, administration, and board of education to achieve these high standards. Congratulations again and we are proud of your achievements.