The Bayfield School District announced last month that meetings of its District Advisory/Accountability Committee (DAAC) were being moved from the Pine River Library to the Bayfield Town Hall, and more than a dozen people attended the first gathering in the new location on November 19.
School principals shared triumphs and challenges from the first couple of months of the school year, and district officials updated the group on master facility planning work, staffing changes and progress on next year’s school calendar.
Bayfield Primary School Principal Jan Alderton said that her school has experienced a 50% decrease in behavior incidents in each of the past two years after student expectations were standardized from classroom to classroom, and slideshows were created and shared with students to help them understand expected behavior.
She also reported that a Core Knowledge Language Arts coach had spent two days with the staff providing training on a reading curriculum they have begun using, and said the school is actively working on improving its school-to-home communication as that was a weakness identified in recent survey.
Bayfield Intermediate School Principal Will Machallister said his school was celebrating a dramatic decrease in unexcused absences to start the year after identifying that as a point of focus.
“Our kids are happy, and they want to be there,” Machallister said. “Our staff has been awesome with their own attendance as well, and that really helps with your consistency.”
The school has also leaned into community partnerships and welcomed some visitors in to share experiences with students. Representatives of the Forest Service recently attended to provide information about bats, and an author gave a presentation on the writing process. They are also offering a “Lunch With a Cop” experience to students. The school has revamped its tutoring program, and there are now seven staff members working with 10 or more students after school, and a new Read With a Dog program has provided some students with a more comfortable environment in which to sharpen their skills.
“It’s an opportunity for students to get that oral reading practice in a fun way. It’s not stressful at all. They just read to the dog,” Machallister said.
Bayfield Middle School Principal Marcia Hoerl reported that the school celebrated league championships in cross country and volleyball this fall, while the football team took third.
“Success breeds success, so it has been good to celebrate those athletic victories,” she said.
A number of eighth-graders who are part of the Career Exploration class took a two-day trip to CU and UCCS and returned excited about what they had seen. BMS is also helping students connect with the graduate profile during their advisory time, and there has been a building-wide focus on “what it means to be professional.” Hoerl also reported that 25 families had attended the first-ever Literacy Night hosted by the school.
Bayfield High School Principal Jason Wayman shared celebrations over the band and volleyball teams qualifying for their respective state events, as well as the Unified bowling team’s third place finish at Regionals.
He shared that tardies are down 80% and ineligibility for sports and activities has decreased by 60%. He believes that a lunchtime tutoring program has helped improve eligibility, but said that the team at BHS is still trying to identify other ways to improve student achievement.
“We’re still looking at how we grow our support for struggling students,” Wayman said.
He also reported that the school is offering less AP course this year but more students are enrolled in the program, and he announced that half of the students at Wolverine Academy are slated to graduate this year.
Assistant Superintendent Bill Hesford reported on a series of Master Facility Planning workshops. In addition to conducting assessments of each of the district’s schools and developing a prioritized maintenance list, consultants from Cuningham and Chamberlin Architects also guided discussions at the workshops that led to the community identifying a potential remodel of Bayfield Middle School and a possible CTE addition at Bayfield High School as top priority infrastructure needs.
“I thought they were very productive, and I thought we got great service from Cuningham in their facilitation of those meetings,” Hesford said. “We feel really positive that we are getting back a really strong product with a lot of detail that will help us be more effective with planning.”
District leaders will continue to work with the consultants to submit an application for a Colorado Department of Education BEST grant and potentially put a bond measure before the voters in the fall of 2025 in the hopes of generating $25 million in funding to use on the projects identified as top priority. Of that total, more than $5 million will have to be used to address deferred maintenance items. If the district is successful in securing a BEST grant, they will reissue a Request for Proposals/Quote for an Owner’s Representative to guide them through any capital construction projects that are undertaken.
Superintendent Leon Hanhardt reported that it has been a challenge to fill a vacant Finance Director position, but a former Finance Director has been filling in on a temporary basis and some of the work is being transferred to a finance company in Denver through the end of the fiscal year on a trial basis.
“We have suspended the search for a Finance Director at this point,” Hanhardt said, noting that the move could result in cost savings if the arrangement proves suitable. “They’re going to serve us until June and we will make some decisions on how that worked.”
The superintendent also updated the committee on work that has been done by the district’s calendar committee, and indicated that a proposal for next year’s calendar would be presented to the school board at their December 10 meeting. He said that the committee may be prepared to present proposals for calendars for the next two years at that time, which would help staff members and the families of students with planning.
Hanhardt fielded some questions from community members about recent surveys that had been conducted in the district, and he said that survey results for each building would be presented by principals at their School Advisory/Accountability Committee meetings.
The next meeting of the District Advisory/Accountability Committee will be at 9 a.m. on February 4 at Bayfield Town Hall.