School administrators' work doesn't stop in summer months

In the summer of 1995, I worked a three month internship at The Warroad Pioneer, which I'm sorry to say has since ceased operation. This was the first professional newspaper that I worked for in my career, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I had only worked at Bemidji State University's newspaper for about a year and half before landing the internship. At The Pioneer I gained experience in sports, feature, beat and government reporting. I designed pages, took and developed photographs and was responsible for community relations. The best part is that I remain friends with the owners nearly 30 years later.

July 4, 1995

By Devlyn Brooks

Most area students have been out of school and enjoying their summer for nearly three weeks. However, the summer months aren't purely a vacation for the people who run the Warroad school system.

June through August is a busy time of preparing, planning and scheduling for the upcoming school year. It is also a time for completing state reports and forms.

The man who is ultimately responsible for coordinating the school district, Superintendent John Reishus, said that a school's fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30 so all reports and books must be done by the end of June.

High School Principal Dave Kragness is one of those people in which the summer months are spent filling out state reports. One of those reports is the Minnesota Automated Reporting Student System which is used to "track days of enrollment" for each student, Kragness said. Student enrollment is how the state decides what amount of money goes to each school. So it is important they have everything correct, he said. One mistake could cost them a lot of money.

Kragness also said that scheduling for the high school is done during the summer.

"Four hundred thirty kids need to be scheduled into seven classes a day," Kragness said. "This takes a while."

The scheduling process begins in February when each student is asked to sign up for the classes they wish to take. Then the high school office builds a conflict matrix to determine the least number of conflicts between all 430 students, the teachers and finally all room assignments.

After this, the principal's office must then balance out the class sizes so that they are close to even. In the end of August, he said the students will be asked to come in and visit with the school counselor to find out their schedule. "We will be refining the master schedule until the last day of summer," Kragness said. "You can never get all the conflicts out."

Another process that Kragness must do is the Planning, Evaluating and Reporting of student curriculum. He said that the school operates on a six-year curriculum review cycle. Each year the school is evaluated on a different area of learning, and then the school must use this information to change its curriculum. "Each summer we must evaluate our test scores and evaluate where we are in the curriculum cycle," Kragness said.

He also said they have to fill teacher and staff positions during the summer months.

"We always have some turnover," he said.

The high school office updates the student and teacher handbooks every summer, does its purchase orders, gives tours to prospective students and "there's always day-to-day operational things," Kragness said.

Middle School Principal Charles Woolcock said his job differs from the high school principal little when it comes to some summer duties. He said that things such as replacing staff is the same process the high school endures.

Woolcock said that his biggest "gig" currently is the 2nd Annual Warroad Middle School institution that he coordinates. He said that that is a big project and takes a lot of administration time.

He also said that the Middle School is in the process of expanding the computer lab. "This is a project that I want to make sure is up and running when school starts," Woolcock said.

Budgeting is a major task said Woolcock, because all the teachers have to order their supplies and books, which all have to add up to be under the budget.

He said that the Middle School just finished their student handbook, and the school's office is working on the teacher handbook.

This particular summer will also be a time of learning for the teachers and administration of the Middle School. First, there is the middle level institution that Warroad hosts during June. Then, in the end of July, Woolcock and some other teachers plan to attend a middle school conference at the University of Wisconsin - Platville, and before school starts there will be three days of in-service in August.

Emily Turner, business manager of Warroad's School District, said that her office, along with every other office, does a lot of "year-end stuff." She said that all records have to be updated and current when June 30 comes around.

"We have to finish up the teacher payrolls, and then we still have payrolls to do during the summer months also," she said. "We have to pay each month's bills too."

Reports are a big part of her job during the summer, she said. There is normal year-end paperwork that needs to be done, and then there are state health and safety reports to be done. Turner said that she also has to get ready for the end-of-the-year audit.

She said that her office is also in charge of typing all the purchase orders for the entire school district, and then her office keeps track of the incoming supplies also. The supplies start arriving in mid-July. "We have one lady that does nothing but separate the supplies from mid-July to mid-August."

Reishus' job differs from the other administrators because he is ultimately responsible that there is no unfinished business during the summer.

He said that one of his major tasks is "to determine what the school is going to do about the changes the Legislature makes in school funding.

"This is a particularly bad year for schools dealing with the Legislature," Reishus said.

He said that the school board just completed the teacher negotiations a couple of weeks ago. There is also hiring that has to be done for each school.

He said that the schools are ramping some of their entrances to comply with the American Disabilities Act. There are also routine maintenance duties, such as painting, that are done every year. This year seal-coating the parking lot will be one of those maintenance jobs.

He also helps people in the school district with grant writing.

He describes his job in the summer as mostly "pulling it all together."

Although each administrator agreed that they stay busy with keeping the school district operating, they all said that they try to fit some vacation into their summer also.