Rising food prices force adjustment to school budget

LAUREL – Everyone has likely experienced sticker shock at the grocery store over the past year and it has carried over to the Laurel-Concord-Coleridge school budget.

Last week, LCC School Board members approved an amendment to this year’s budget to reflect a $40,000 difference in the amount budgeted for food in its school lunch program and what it actually cost.

The school district was able to cover the additional costs but still needed to officially update that line item in its budget, said Superintendent Jeremy Christiansen.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, consumers across the nation saw the largest increase in food prices since the 1980s, increasing 11 percent from 2021 to 2022, and continuing to rise every year since although at a smaller percentage increase. Inflation contributed to the increase but also global disruptions in food supply chains due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“While I am hopeful that school food prices will level out, we are not yet seeing any indications of that happening as the new school year begins,” Christiansen said. “We are planning to adjust our budget for this next school year assuming that prices will remain elevated.”

At its meeting last week, board members also reviewed and approved a new instructional model and appraisal system for evaluating its teachers.

The purpose of the new teacher appraisal system is to identify effective practices, recognize successful implementation and support teachers so that all students will be taught by highly effective educators.

It provides a process of evaluating non-tenured (those in their first through third year of teaching at LCC) and tenured (those who have taught four or more years) in a number of ways including a self assessment, formal and informal observations, a summative evaluation and periodic classroom walkthroughs.

Teachers will be evaluated in three domains: planning and reflecting, teaching, and professionalism, with multiple components within each of those domains.

“We tried to make these a little more clear. Some of them were kind of vague and repetitive in our first model,” said Laura Nordby, one of the teachers who helped develop the new instructional model and appraisal. “Any teacher in our district can look through and know clearly what’s expected of them.”

The instructional model provides a rating scale to evaluate teachers on their progress in meeting the components or standards within the three domains.

A rating of a ‘4’ would indicate an innovating score and would apply to teachers who introduce new ideas or methods, are willing to take risks, and improves processes in novel ways.

A rating of ‘3’ would indicate a teacher is applying effective teaching methods and strategies, and demonstrates a solid understanding of curriculum standards, regularly reflecting and adjusting practices to improve.

A rating of ‘2’ would indicate a teacher is developing and showing growth in understanding teaching methods but may require additional support and professional development to reach full proficiency.

A rating of ‘1’ would identify a teacher as ineffective, failing to consistently apply effective teaching methods and strategies with significant gaps in understanding curriculum standards, with a need for substantial improvement and support.

The goal would be to have all teachers at a ‘3’ or higher, Nordby said.

“I think it’s really going to help when I have conversations with new teachers and staff members to guide them and I think the veteran teachers will appreciate the clarity,” she said.

Teachers Denise Kinkaid, Ali Kvols and Jennifer Van Meter also helped in the development of the new system along with Christiansen and school principals.