The countdown to school continued on Monday night as the King Philip School Committee gathered for their August meeting at the KP High School Library.

A request to rename the private way that connects Route 140 to Shears Street to William Daniel Way was addressed. Daniel, who was a graduate of KP and a dispatcher for the town of Wrentham, passed away in May following a brief illness. While there were no objections to the renaming of the road, the matter was sent to the Policy Subcommittee to make sure that the committee was not overstepping their boundaries by renaming the street.

For anyone who may of received a notice in the mail that the class their child signed up for was canceled, chances it was due to low enrollment rather than budget cuts. In an update from new KP Principal Lisa Oliveira, while there were cuts due to the budget, many courses were cut due to the lack of popularity with some of the available courses. Examples include a poetry class that only had one student enroll and a pop cultural studies class that no student signed up for.

As for the actual schedules, it will be released through iParent on August 10 or 12 as part of an effort to promote the service. The initiative is part of a plan by the KP School District to go paperless. Report cards will also be released in the future through iParent. Parents of KP students can sign up for the service at the KP website.

There is some concern however that the science courses that KP provides may be getting too high as far as classroom numbers go. With many students taking 2-3 science classes at a time according to Oliveira, the size of many of those classes are in the 30-32 student range. In addition, AP Physics was cut due to budget setbacks.

Also at capacity or near capacity are Ethics, Sociology, and all Psychology classes, which have all reached 32 students.

Policy Section I went through it’s first reading. The revised section has many parts removed due to those parts being covered in a different policy. Anyone wishing to see the revisions that were part of the first reading may do so on the school committee’s website.

Superintendent Elizabeth Zielinski was given a 1% raise based upon her current contract for fiscal year 2011 based upon her evaluation plus an additional 1% salary increase for fiscal year 2013 by the committee and received approval to continue her duties as an adjunct professor as American International University. The raise brings Dr. Zielinski’s salary to $140,454. 

The committee approved a donation of $9,309.95 from the King Philip Middle School PTSO. The money was given for the purpose of purchasing iPads for KP Middle School.

The committee also approved the date of their annual walk through of KP High School and Middle School. Both walk-throughs will take place on August 27 with the high school going first at 7 p.m. and the middle school walk-through beginning at 8 p.m. The community is invited to join the school committee for their walk-through.