Bob Toso, superintendent of the Jamestown School District, was the guest speaker at the July 10 Rotary Club meeting.
Toso said his office and the school board are working on information from the strategic planning group. He said they are looking at the green space for the middle school and hoping they can have something to present at the August and September school board meetings.
The board is visiting with Jamestown Hospital with regard to purchasing Lincoln school, Toso said. He said the school board is hoping to make some decisions with regard to these issues this fall.
Toso said negotiations have been completed for the teachers contracts and he is very pleased it has gone smoothly and quickly. He said a great help was that the Legislature provided an increase in funding to public schools over previous years and this helps the Jamestown School District.
Another goal of the superintendent is always making sure graduation rates stay up, Toso said. North Dakota is currently in the top five states with graduation rates and yet is not at the level that he, or other administrators, would like to see. Currently, the graduation rate is about 79.9 percent or 80 percent, but Toso said he would really like to see graduation at a 95 percent rate.
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Toso was asked how the school was doing as far as meeting the standards the federal government had placed on having qualified teachers. He said all the teachers in the school system are qualified and meet the standards. He gave the example that, in the future, if a teacher is a math major and teaches math, the teacher is in the qualified area; but if the teacher has a major in elementary education to teach grade school this would not be considered qualified since the federal system wants to require someone who teaches grade school to have a master's degree in elementary education. Toso as well as other administrators don't necessarily agree with those federal guidelines, but must adhere to them.
The July 10 meeting was presided over by Dave Smette, the new president. Darrell Losing provided the invocation. Music was sing-a-long with Larry Hoffman accompanied by Bev Hall.
Smette said Rotary International's mission statement this year is "To provide service to others to promote high ethical standards and to advance the world's understanding and peace through its fellowship of businesses, professionals and community leaders."
Mark Olson, representative of the Rokiwan camp program, said the camp is full and they started with students on July 16 for a full week of camping. A program is at 5:30 p.m. Thursday for parents and for Kiwanis and Rotary members to attend. Janet Kramlich is the new camp director.
Today's program will be presented by Fargo Rotarian Herb Schmidt. He will talk about the North Dakota Rotary clubs putting together a project in Guatemala. Also, the membership committee will be sharing goals for the current year.
