The award reflects compliance with Minnesota Statutes on selected finance issues.  It also recognizes a proactive stance by the District on positive fund balances, sound fiscal polices and practices, training initiatives and accountability. The Minnesota Department of Education uses this award to recognize “good work” by school districts.

Virginia joined 18 other first timers on the winners list this year.  About 20% (68 of 340) of traditional school districts in Minnesota qualified for this award.  Chisholm, Cook County and Grand Rapids were the other RAMS (Range Association of Municipalities and Schools) school districts to earn this award.

                               Tim Riordan, Bill Hafdahl, Wendy McAllister,

                          Dennis Hendricks, Dave Johnson, Paul Cerkvenik

  “We are honored to work with the state’s leaders in the elementary and secondary communities,” said Chancellor James H. McCormick.  “The recognition of these three individuals represents our high regard for them, their schools and the students they serve. In the face of tight budgets and high expectations, these individuals are achieving remarkable results in the schools they lead and building strong connections with partner colleges and universities in the system.”

   The awards were developed in collaboration with the Minnesota Elementary School Principals’ Association and the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals.  This is the first year the awards have been presented.  The categories and recipients follow:

   Elementary Principal Leadership – Partnership Award:  Andrew Collins, principal of Dayton’s Bluff Achievement Plus Elementary School in St. Paul. 

   Secondary Principal Leadership – Partnership Award:  Laverne Hakly, principal of Virginia High School in Virginia, Minn.  The award recognizes her strong advocacy and support for the work of Mesabi Range Community and Technical College and specifically for the Applied Learning Institute that offers college-level technical courses to high school juniors and seniors, theater programming and service on the college’s Wind and Emerging Technologies Advisory Committee.

   Special Recognition Leadership – Partnership Award:  Virginia Karbowski, former director of the Secondary Technical Education Program.

   These last two awards were presented Jan. 29 at the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals Winter Workshop in Minneapolis.

   The system worked closely with the two associations to develop the awards, said Cyndy Crist, system director for prekindergarten-16 collaboration. “We were pleased with the number and strength of nominations for these new awards,” Crist said. “They made clear the extent to which principals and other educators are working with college and university partners to create new and better ways to help students move seamlessly and successfully along their educational pathways.”

   Joann Knuth, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals, said:  “We are very grateful for the recognition of these outstanding principals by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.  The Leadership – Partnership Award honors excellence in collaborations between a school and a college or university and reflects the importance of an ongoing relationship between our two organizations as we focus on the same goal: ensuring that all Minnesota students graduate from high school ready for college and careers.”

   The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system comprises 32 state universities and community and technical colleges serving the higher education needs of Minnesota. The system serves about 260,000 students per year in credit-based courses and an additional 164,000 students in non-credit courses.

The Virginia School Board Monday, December 14^th, heard a presentation from Business Manager Spencer Aune pertaining to the 2010-2011 School Levy during the Truth in Taxation portion of the meeting. The original levy which was set at the September 28, 2009 meeting at an 8.96 % increase was lowered to a 4.9 % increase, or just over a $60,000 increase from last year’s levy. The Virginia School Board unanimously approved lowering the levy due to updated assumptions and to stabilize it rather than having high spikes from year to year. “There are so many variables that come into play with property wealth actually on the increase over the last year combined with declining enrollment and less revenue from the state which all came into play when making this difficult decision” said Board Chair Dennis Hendricks, and “we must consider the area economics and our constituents.”

Secondary Principal Laverne Hakly introduced and presented board certificates to Senior High student Wesley Stubbs for both academic and athletic achievements accomplished this fall. Wesley received a National Award given by the National Merit Scholarship Program for 2010 earlier but was unable to accept his award because of his participation in the Minnesota State High School Cross Country Meet. Wesley and Emma Carter were selected from over 1.5 million students for this prestigious award (Emma received her award at the November 9^th meeting). During her board report Ms. Hakly talked about the positive results encountered by the elementary staff while using the new Response to Intervention (RTI) program. Her final topic was about many students that are active in our tutoring program helping students in mathematics and English. Ms. Hakly went on to say that our in-house tutoring program will be combined with the “Brainfuse” program which is a 24/7 live tutoring website for high school students in collaboration with the Virginia Public Library.

Superintendent Futterer presented current enrollment figures which show that we have regained students that the district has lost since the first day school. He also reported that 22 staff members have joined the “706 Club” which is part of the Virginia Community Foundation and challenged the teachers in the audience that have not signed up to do so. During his report he talked about the Northeast Service Cooperative insurance grant program for which five school groups have qualified, making a positive health insurance change while lowering costs and keeping good health benefits. Mr. Futterer also commended his Executive Secretary Jane Foster for completing training and being recertified as an election administrator for the school district. 

In other action the board accepted a $3,000 grant from ArcelorMittal for the Roosevelt School forest which is overseen primarily by elementary science staff Chris Holmes and Rick Erickson. In addition, the board accepted a grant in the amount of $1,577 from the Minnesota State High School League to help defray activity fees for lower income families.

Submitted by Board Director Tim Riordan

We are using written notes and our Instant Alert system to inform families about Minnesota Department of Health recommendations for dealing with influenza like illnesses such as staying home for at least 24 hours after a fever has abated.  Our two nurses (Misty Elliott at Roosevelt/VHS and Shelby Peterson at Parkview) have been extremely busy dealing with students and talking to parents via the phone or email but they want you to contact them if you have any health related questions.

If we all sneeze or cough into our sleeve, wash our hands often, keep our fingers out of our mouth, eyes or nose, get plenty of sleep, and stay home when we are sick these actions will go a long way towards slowing down the flu bug here in Virginia.

Please make sure that your family has contacted a school building office and signed on to our Instant Alert system.  This will assure you get important information quickly.

Enrollment is up at all three district buildings causing the average class size to increase slightly at every grade level.  The average class size ranges from a low of 20.2 in first grade to a high of 24.5 in second grade with all other grade level falling somewhere in between.  Since school districts in Minnesota receive most of their funding based upon the student count, this enrollment increase will provide more revenue and quite possibly allow the district to have a balanced revenue – expenditure budget for the 2009-2010 school year.

As of Tuesday, the Virginia Public Schools were anticipating an increase of at least 63 students over the enrollment projected in June 2009.  The largest enrollment gains were in kindergarten with thirteen and grades 5 and 7 with twelve each. The reasons for the enrollment gains are many, but the outstanding scores the Virginia students annually earn on state tests and nationally with the ACT may be the catalyst for some open enrollees.