Stand ian studio with this. He is Chuck McCauley. He's the superintendent of
schools here and at Bartlesville Public Schools. And you know, a warm good
morning to you. Sure it is very warm, thank you for having me,
Tom, And and yeah, we're all think we're all have had about
enough of this weather and been praying hopefully next week it'll cool off for us.
A couple of heat related things like to bring up first of all,
sure the air conditions working at the school. Sure they're doing well. I
mean, it's a challenge to keep up with his truth of the matter,
but our facility staff is doing a great job with that. You know,
we've had a couple of times where we've had to bring in you know,
portable units or a move a classroom. Monday morning, we had a tough
start at the high school. Their children was down, but they're able to
get it up and running and cool down by the end of the day.
And then also, you know, just people and they didn't know our buses,
all our air conditions. Well it's good. Yeah, I know,
somebody asking that question the other day, and so I know a lot of
people think of it like when we grew up you know, the air conditioning
was put the windows down. Yeah, but that's but it is hot and
we are obviously some heat mitigation things that we're doing. On the activity side,
you know, think about our outdoor activities that are going on, and
I know Evan's covered those, but we had any health related issues due to
the heat. We have not so far, so good. You know,
things have been knock on wood and on the activities, you know, they're
they've moved back some of the start times, like some softball games and our
football scrimmages as well. Our our football team, they've practiced in full pads
yesterday at six thirty in the morning and so they did that and as soon
as they got off the turf, our our band was practicing another were able
to get from the parking lot onto the turf. And I didn't want to
remind people we are hosting our varsity scrimmage tomorrow night and that Evans group,
you know, they're gonna live stream that. So you know, it's one
thing our athletes and our coaches, they're acclimated, they're used to being out
in as they're practicing it every day. But for fans, you know,
that's a concern that we have to. You know, parents are grandparents and
aren't used to being out, so tomorrow they're not They're not going to do
play by play, but they can at least watch the scrimmage and listen to
You can hear Chris batschild are probably from your house. Yeah, you got
some bo He knows how to project, he really does. Yeah. So
yeah, so that's gone. Well, we're in the you know, we're
ten days of school and off to a really good, really good start.
And I shared at our board meeting Monday, if you just kind of back
to school updates, was first of all, just kind of talk about our
enrollment, what that looks like. You know, this really up until Labor
Day, it's pretty enrollment can fluctuate quite a bit. But when we look
at where we are on Monday compared to where we were on the eighth day
of school last year, we're up about fifty six kids. You know,
if you compared that to two years ago, we were up one hundred and
twenty eight kids. And then I went back and looked at the same time
from pre pandemic. So in twenty nineteen when school started, we're up about
three hundred. So, uh, that, so that was kind of nice
to see a little bit slow growth this year because sometimes I can make it
challenge to staff, but that's that continues to head in the right direction.
We also on a couple of things just to that, we put some information
out about our FFA program that we've found out right about the start of school
that they're in the top ten their finalist, one of ten in the country
for the FFA their Model of Excellence Award, and so nobody in Oklahoma has
won that for three years. So they'll find out at the national convention here
in a couple of months. So really proud of that program continues to flourish,
really proud of their leadership, and tickled that our kids have the opportunity
to be enrolled in that program. And then also shared with them a couple
of things that are we talked about our elementary ATLAS program that we're LaDonna Chance
were giving updated our board meeting about that and that's how housed over at Ranch
Heights And just as a reminder, that's a program for our elementary kids.
There are kids there from that normally would be at each one of our six
schools, but we have them at Ranch Heights and these are kids that have
generally have had some severe trauma in their lives and so they it's really not
academic issues they're struggling with, but it's really just emotional issues. And so
we come up with a program Heather Boil as a teacher and have a full
time assistant and also some help from Grand Lake Mental Health and they are and
so we can put our resources together and help serve our kids at Ranch Heights
and they spend the kind of the goal is by the time they're in fifth
grade, we want them to be in the traditional classroom full time, but
they can't quite ready for that now, and so it's been successful. So
really pleased with that. It's also, you know, bottom line is helping
our kids there, but it's also helping the schools where they were because they
were there may be one or two of these kids at a certain school that
really didn't have the resources to serve them and so therefore they can really you
know, do some damage in terms of your culture of that school because they're
just like disruption. Yeah, exactly, with disruptions too. So that's been
a successful I also wanted to mention something new this year that's our friends over
and on the Rock. They have over at the creamery. They have Sandy
Dosset, who's a former teacher of ours who's eat. She has been talking
to us last couple of years wanting to get something started to help our kids
really when they're getting started in high school. I mean she taught at our
mid high for years but affectually had my son in English. But she really
has a heart for kids that aren't quite ready emotionally for school, high school
wise, maturity, whatever it might be in their life. And so we've
got we have ten kids enrolled. There are ninth graders. We kind of
targeted our administrators targeted some kids from Central and some from Madison, and we
know who these kids are that know that they just date some a little bit
more emotional support, some smaller class sizes to really help them get them ready
for high school. They were quite ready for the high school yet. And
so we got started with those ten. We met with their families and they've
they're off to a good start. I got some good feedback already from the
parents or police that we're giving them this option to help them get them ready
for school. I mean they're still you know, like I think they're eating
breakfast at the high school and they go over to the creamery and spend their
day there. And they've got some of course, have some deep resources over
there as well, like they're getting Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, so
Martlesville Education Promise. Actually they helped us find me that's an innovative program.
But they help pay for half the teacher salary and half the assistant that's over
there too, So we're excited about that to help our kids, help our
kids continue to grow. And then also wanted to mention that our Bruins on
the Run they just finished up their sign up. So that's our fifth grade
after school running program and we've had we've had a record number. We have
one hundred and twenty three kids sign up for that. Yeah, isn't that
something, and and fifty five mentors and so what that will be that those
kids will run two or three days a week after school and with their goal
they're playing at the end of the season, they'll run the wool Rock Ak
and it's really cool. It's yeah, well I really hope so comment.
I think that's in October twentieth round round fall breaks. So yeah, we're
really excited about that. Glad that we can offer that, and you know
that's probably I don't know that's that's we're probably looking at about thirty percent of
our fifth graders that are enrolled in that program. So that's really cool.
So really glad that we can offer that as well. And then we want
to mission to our board meeting we did approve kind of took the final step
on improving our teacher pay raise. We negotiate, we bargained with our teacher
association, and so our board of course approved to that Monday, took that
final step, and so's a that is tied to the state pay raise that
came across out of the last legislative session, which is a three It's a
three thousand dollars for a brand new teacher. In other words, a brand
new teacher this year is gonna make three thousand more that if they would have
started last year, and then up to a six thousand dollars teacher for our
teachers that have at least twenty years of experience. So we're able to incorporate
that across the board, so teachers receive that increase, which is obviously one
of the things that we can do to help retain our staff and retain our
teachers. You know, earlier in the summer we approved our two dollars an
hour increase for our support employees, all of our hourly employees. We've done
that the last two years. And then we also increased our substitute pay we
pay now pay for our certified subs, we pay them one hundred dollars a
day, and for non certified we pay them eighty dollars a day. So
several of those things and that's just the price of doing business now, making
sure our compensation is fair, and we've come a long way on that.
I know, our certified teachers, they've had about a since twenty eighteen,
it's been about a thirty five percent pay increase. A couple of those have
been done from the state. But then also we've done our part locally,
you know, with our increased enrollment, we've received some increased funding that comes
along with them that we put right back into the classroom, so into our
teacher salaries as well. And then our few our SROs there there were fully
staffed, which is going really well. I mean, they're just part of
what we do. They've already jumped right in and serving our kids. I
know, I was at maybe three of our schools yesterday and I want to
talk to uh. I was over at Wayside and visits with them yesterday and
at Kane Elementary as well with Principale Krouse and an officer Hollander, and they're
really just kind of part of what we do. It's really neat and I
know Principal Crouse was talking about them going on at the home visit to go
visits and families, making sure we get our kids in school and it's really
nice to be able to do that without support to have that partner, so
thankful to be able to offer that as well. And then it's also going
to mention our just construction, just an update on that. We've got a
lot going on. The agg facility is going really well. It is.
It's really yeah. Drive by way well yeah, so drive by you go
by the high school over on the shiny side, when you see that,
you know it's we look like we're going to be in that. Hopefully if
the fourth quarter we'll be able to use it, so hopefully by spring break
this year. So that's going going really well. We just recently just approved
the Greenhouse's portion of that that's something A Lion Foundation covered the cost of those,
and they did that because just inflation costs, the construction costs have gone
up so much even since we just passed that bond issue. And then over
at Wayside Elementary, we've got a lot going on and so I really please
be kind to all of our teachers, but I especially our teachers at Wayside.
You know, when you're living in a remodel, it can be a
challenge over there, but they're Elliot's Smith and Jessica Burke. The administration over
there has done a great job on managing that. It was a pickup and
drop off and really thankful for our parents. But that continues to move right
along with our plan. There is that expansion and renovation to be finished in
August of next year, and then next up coming up on the facility side,
we'll be adding some electronic marquees at all of our schools that don't have
them currently. The High School and Wilson and Kane now have electronic marquees and
we're gonna be adding those across the district. And then later this school year
we'll get started over at our Ranch Heights expansion as well. So a lot
going on. Of course I always mentioned our STEM program. I wanted to
add that. You know, as we know, we are aviations in our
second year and we offer six we have six full classes of aviation at Bartlesville
High School. So we're off to a great start and looking forward to having
a great year. Well great, and well thank you very much for dropping,
buying, sharing everything. You know, a lot of people are still
in the hubbub of oh my gosh school again. Yeah, starting to calm
down. The dust is starting to at least at our house. That's like
a boy, it just right back into the thicket things. And if you
have a children who are involved with the different clubs and organizations, sports and
what have you and all the activities, they're loving it. Yeah, it's
we really do have a lot going on. You only may to shift at
our middle school level where those kids have their athletics and things first period,
which I'm with this weather has really been really been a good thing too.
But our participation has gone up tremendously. Uh. You know, it's also
allowed our high school. You know, we've always done that with our music
people had our high school music people have been able to spend time with our
middle school kids, and so now we're doing that on the athletic field as
well. I think that's also helps, like with our ACT program, for
those our ACT teachers to be able to work with our eighth grade eighth grade
kids as well. So that participation has gone exceedingly exceedingly well in our youth
programming. Our youth football program they've had, they report that they have their
highest numbers and ever, and so that continues to go well, which is
a good feeder program. Our fall activities are off to a great start.
You know. Football had the first scrimmage last week, and it's always good
to start off, you know, it's a scrimmage. To start off with
a victory over our friends over at Punkin City. Do we get a trophy
out of that? You know, I don't. It's a scrimmage, I
know, I know, but I know it seems likely since we started winning
those last couple of years. I don't know if they've relinquished that, But
we'll have to work and we actually I think we play them in the regular
schedule next year, so hopefully we can work on that. Volleyball is doing
great. We have a ton of girls playing volleyball. In all across the
district. And I know they beat Bixby last night and softball has had a
tough start, but I know they want to think three in their last four
including beating Union and Broken Arrow and the last couple of games. Last lots
of tough one to Bixby, but I appreciate all their work. Of course,
in our cross country kids are still just running away and they've got their
first meet. I think this is going to be this weekend, tomorrow or
Friday or Saturday. It might get into the nineties by that. Yes,
hopefully they'll at least they'll run in the morning. Yeah, exactly. I
hope that happens too. And of course our band kids, they may be
the hardest working kids in show business. They've been out there working. Yeah,
I really afford to to us seeing their performance come out. So hopefully
I'll come out and we'll have a first home game on September one, and
hopefully we'll come out and support our kids. All right, thank you very
much, I appreciate it. Check the calling here with us right here on
Kay one on our community connection