Meeting
City Council · 2015-02-25
City Council meeting
Decisions
0
0 motions in all
Split votes
0
at least one no
Discussion
–
no recording
Residents spoke
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introduced themselves
Agenda items and what happened
Items and outcomes were extracted from the agenda and minutes by Claude (Anthropic); each links to the minutes page. The minutes are authoritative.
Text extracted from the minutes PDF (scanned pages via OCR). The PDF is the official record.
OREMCITYCOUNCIL/ALPINESCHOOLDISTRICT SPECIALJOINTMEETING 56 North State, Orem, Utah February 25, 2015 This meeting was for discussion purposes only. No official action was taken. CONDUCTING Mayor Richard F. Brunst, Jr. OREMELECTEDOFFICIALS Councilmembers Hans Andersen, Margaret Black, Tom Macdonald, Mark E. Seastrand, and Brent Sumner OREM STAFF Jamie Davison, City Manager; Brenn Bybee, Assistant City Manager; Stephen Downs, Assistant to the City Manager; Karl Hirst, Recreation Director; and Jackie Lambert, Deputy City Recorder ALPINEBOARDOFEDUCATION John Burton, Paula Hill, and JoDee Sundberg ALPINESCHOOLDISTRICT ADMIN. Vern Henshaw, Superintendent ABSENT/EXCUSED Councilmember David Spencer Board member JoDee Sundberg INVOCATION John Burton called the meeting to order at 12:04 p.m. Items of Common Interest DISCUSSION -Mountain ViewHigh School Parking at Orem Fitness Center Mr. Burton invited Karl Hirst, Orem's Recreation Director, to share some thoughts on how to handle the situation of students and those attending sporting events at Mountain View High School (MVHS) parking in the Orem Fitness Center (OFC) parking lot. Mr. Hirst said the OFC parking lot was the closest parking location to get to the MVHS gym for basketball games and other events. If the school could take more responsibility in directing attendees to those events to park in the school's parking lot, it would go a long way in terms of solving the problem. Mr. Hirst said OFC employees would leave notice on vehicles warning that they would be towed if they continued to park in the wrong lot and had also asked the school to make announcements warning students about the towing policy. The City had towed three vehicles that morning after yet another announcement at the school. He said it was most often a problem during basketball, wrestling, and winter sport months. Mrs. Sundberg said that, in hindsight, it was a bad decision to put the school parking far away from the gym. Joint Orem City Council/Alpine School District Minutes - February 25 2015 (p.1) Mr. Hirst agreed and said the fence was not a particularly effective tool in encourage students to parkinthecorrectlot. DISCUSSION-Joint Legislative Session Committee Mrs. Sundberg gave a report on recent meetings of the Joint Legislative Session Committee, which met every Friday. She said the committee consisted of school board members, superintendents, and business administrators, as well as state and local officials, PTA members, and representatives from the governor's office that were in attendance. There were 140 education bills that were being studied during the current session, some of which would have great effect on public education. On the coming Friday there would be a press conference focusing on the following: (1) the Governor's funding for education, (2) partisan/nonpartisan races, and (3) charter school replacement funding.. . Mayor Brunst asked for more information about partisan/nonpartisan races. Mrs. Sundberg explained how the state school board partisan races and nonpartisan races would be conducted, and.the differences between them. Last year a judge had stated the process of selecting the state school board was unconstitutional, so now the legislature was trying to figure the best way to change it. She said she did not believe partisan races were a good system for the kinds of elections taking place in Utah, especially for smaller communities with smaller elections. Mrs. Sundberg favored the nonpartisan races because candidates would be required to collect signatures from the area they represented. She said she also believed they were fairer and did not cost more to run than partisan races. The process had been under review many times for many years, and one element that kept changing was the school district population that would require a partisan race .versus a nonpartisan race. Alpine, Granite, Davis and Jordan school districts currently had enough students to be required to run partisan races under the proposed bill. Of those polled, 50. to 87 percent were against partisan races. Mr. Macdonald asked how many members served on the state school board, and how many districts there were in Utah. Mrs. Sundberg said there were fifteen members on the board, and Utah hadforty-one school districts. Mrs. Black asked (1) how many signatures a candidate would be required to collect; and (2) what bill number this issue was being considered on. Mrs. Sundberg said the signature amount depended on the district area. She said it was Senate Bill 104, which was up for a vote the following day. Senate Bill 104 had already passed the On the subject of charter school replacement, Mrs. Sundberg said property taxes were collected for the students in the.Alpine School District, but 25 percent of those taxes went to charter schools. Senate Bill 1, the basic funding bill, stated that the amount would be raised to 50 percent of property tax going to.charter schools. That meant there would be a considerable amount of the property tax would go to fund charter schools, without any representation or accountability to the people or on how it was spent. The feeling was that the funding for charter schools should be JointOremCityCouncil/AlpineSchoolDistrictMinutes-February25,2015(p.2) doneatthestatelevel,becausetheyweretheonesthatformedthecharterschoolsandhada charterschoolboard. MayorBrunst asked howmany students in theAlpineSchool District attended charter schools. Dr.Shaw said just under 7,0oo studentsin the Alpine School District area were enrolled in charterschools,butnot allof thosewereenrolledincharterschoolsin thedistrictarea.There were also students who home schooled, and they were not accounted for. Mr.Macdonald askedwhat the Council could do to help. Mrs.Sundberg suggested the Council members study the issues and decide where they stood. Theycouldthencontacttheirrepresentativesandletthemknowhowtheyfelt.Representatives needed tohear from their constituents on such matters.She also suggestedcontacting the Governor on the issues. Parents Involved in Education (PIE) started a petition against partisan races,andanyonewaswelcometosignthatpetition. COBbOEWIES DISCUSSION-QuestionsforAlpineSchool District Mayor Brunst asked how educators felt about“common core”curriculum. Mrs. Sundberg said the core standards were adopted in language arts and math, and the state had full control over them.They had employed core standards since 1986 in seven subject areas. Everyfive to sevenyears the standards were revised by a committee of educators representing gradesK-12.Theycomparedpaststandards andexaminedbetterlinkingofK-12learningin sequence. One concern was that there was not enough professional development or money designatedtofund theinfrastructureofimplementingthecorestandards.Utahwasworkinghard toallowformoreprofessionaldevelopmentforeducators.Mrs.Sundbergsaidshehadnever heard a teacher say they did not like the core standards. Dr.Shawsaid therewasnopush-backonstandards,orteacher developingtheir curriculum.Any push-backtheyhadheardwasonlyinregardsto assessment.HesaidUtahhadcontrolovertheir standards and educators could adapt the core standards inways thatwere more beneficial for theirclasses. Mr.Andersen asked how much federal money came to the Alpine School District as part of the budget. Dr.Shawsaidabout10or11percentofthebudgetwasfederalmoney.Themajorityof thatwas for two different areas:Title 1 and Title 2,covering special education, and lowincome or disadvantagedstudents. MayorBrunstaskedabouttechnologyusedingradeschoolclassrooms,andiftherewas movementtowardusingmoretechnologyintheclassroom. Dr.Shawsaidthetopichadbeendiscussedforsometime.For amonumentalshiftinthe amount andkindsoftechnologyusedinclassrooms,all aspectswouldneedtobecoordinatedwith funding,teacher development,infrastructure,etc.Therewasalsothe question ofwhether increased technology in the classroom would increase and improve student learning. Joint OremCity Council/Alpine SchoolDistrict Minutes-February 252015(p.3) Mrs. Hill said the technology would need to be vetted to ensure it was a useful tool, especially for such technologically savvy generations as those in schools now and in the future. Mr.Seastrand added that parents would also need to get up to speed on the technologyfor it to be as helpful in all aspects. SetDateandTimeforNext The next meeting was scheduled for April 22, 2015, at noon in Orem. The meeting adjourned at 1:02p.m. OREM CITYOF 88 CORPORATE SEAL maR.Xeaver DonnaR.Weaver,CityRecorder Approved:March10,2015 JointOremCityCouncil/AlpineSchoolDistrictMinutes-February25,2015（p.4)