The Manhattan-Ogden USD 383 Board of Education held a special meeting last night at 5:30 p.m. to hear the postponed contract and site council reports for the six Manhattan-area elementary schools: Woodrow Wilson, Lee, Marlatt, Ogden, Theodore Roosevelt and Amanda Arnold.

The seven members of the Board of Education, along with each of the elementary schools' principals and the middle schools' principals, were all present to listen and ask questions regarding the site council reports.

According to usd383.org, the Manhattan school district's Web site, a site council is a group composed of the principal, teachers, staff and parents of students at a school who are responsible for providing advice and counsel in evaluating the school's performance goals and objectives. The site council also determines methods that should be implemented at the respective school in order to meet these goals and objectives.

The information the site council comes up with is then written into a report for the school's leaders to utilize. The purpose of last night's meeting was to give each of the elementary schools' principals the chance to read their report to the Board and to answer any questions regarding its content.

Each of the schools had some similar problems and issues they discussed, one of which was the high turnover rate. Manhattan's elementary schools have such high turnover rates as a result of the high percentage of military students in the schools.

Ogden Elementary School has the highest turnover rate of all the elementary schools, with only nine percent of the student population that has attended the school for an entire elementary career.

Jim Armendariz, principal of Ogden Elementary, said the school's low overall population has lost 40 kids from last year which resulted in the downsizing of two classes.

Another shared problem between the schools related to the military student population are low state assessment test scores. Each principal reported this as a major problem but could not provide a resolution.

"We worry a little bit about the kids who come to Woodrow," said Eric Koppes, principal of Woodrow Wilson. "We have kids at fourth and fifth-grade age that literally have not experienced school ... because they have never had the opportunity to do it before."

The high percentage of diverse students in each of the schools also causes issues with state assessment scores because some of the students do not speak English as their native tongue. Some of the principals explained that with the large amount of kids flowing into and out of these schools from all over the world, it is hard to keep all the students in a set curriculum that would help improve the test scores.

However, there was quite a list of positive things happening in the elementary schools of the district. Currently, there are renovations being done at a couple of the schools; the principal of Amanda Arnold Elementary, Larry Liotta, said the school is in the middle of the construction process. Lee and Marlatt Elementary schools are also in the process of renovating.

Three of the six schools reported that they received some kind of grant for technology or resources for the schools. Most of the schools have projectors for many of their classrooms, and Ogden has a SMART Board in every room.

The meeting concluded with the discussion of a major problem for the entire district, not only the elementary schools: budget. The president of the Board, Nancy Knapp, said the district will have to deal with about $3.4 million in budget and programming cuts.

"This is more than we've ever had to go through before, but we'll get through it," Knopp said. "We have to."

According to the district's Web site, the next Board of Education meeting will be January 20 at 6:30 p.m. All who are interested in attending these meetings are encouraged to attend.