Head Start Director Announces Retirement

North Central Missouri College trustees will be looking to hire a new director for the Green Hills Head Start program after the current director announced her retirement Tuesday afternoon.
Trustees accepted, with much appreciation and regret, the resignation of Dr. Beverly Hooker, who has been with the program since 1987 and has served as the director for 20 years. She will retire as the director effective Jan. 31, 2019. The college administers the program, which has sites throughout the Green Hills area as well as a home-based component.
Trustees heard a report from NCMC President Dr. Lenny Klaver, who said spring enrollment, at this point, is up 3 percent. He noted that the “No Fee November,” which involved prospective students being able to apply without a fee, has resulted in applications going from about 40 down from the same week in 2017 to being up two applications in one week. He and Tami Campbell, senior database administrator, discussed IT issues that arose during the weekend snow storm.
Dr. Klaver also presented the 2018 Performance Measure Results, which show NCMC has improved in the three-year graduation and transfer rate (and ranked in the top third of its peers), percent of attempted courses successfully completed (and ranked in the top third) pass rates on professional licensure exams (meets or exceeds benchmark) and non-core expenditures as a percent of total expenditures. NCMC ranked below the national median (which is good) on tuition and fees as a percent of median family income. NCMC ranks above the benchmark of 75 percent of graduates having a successful outcome. The figure for 2015-2016 graduates, the last figures available, is 94 percent. Overall, NCMC made 2/2 of the priority measures and 5/5 overall with the 2016-2017 successful outcome rate still to be determined.
Dean of Instruction Mitchell Holder informed trustees of ongoing discussions concerning articulation agreements involving the RN to BSN program at Northwest Missouri State University and partnering with Northwest in its efforts to bring a doctoral of nursing education program to that institution by 2020. He noted that NCMC’s online ADN program was recently named number three in the nation by onlinedegrees.com. He and Practical Nursing and Health Sciences Director Korynn Skipper discussed the accreditation process that is currently under way.
In other business, trustees:
• approved a supplemental grant application for the Head Start program to fund increased program hours for Head Start center-based slots. The additional money will include $68,565. In addition, the board reviewed the Classroom Assessment Scoring System report that assessed the quality of teacher-child interactions in the Head Start program.
• declared several items to be surplus property.
• approved the purchase of computer hardware from Zones of Auburn, WA at a cost of $29,905.43, which was the only complete bid of five submitted. The purchase includes 14 laptops, one desktop, six printers and three wireless access points for replacement in Hoffman Hall and vocational classrooms as well as vocational faculty laptops.
• approved the purchase of computer software from SHI of Somerset, NJ at a cost of $16,942.50, the lowest of three complete bids received. The software includes Desktop Authority, Symantec and Adobe Creative Cloud for various computers in Hoffman Hall and vocational classrooms as well as vocational faculty laptops.
• approved the establishment of a new, full-time position of campus store associate-retail operations. The position will combine two part-time positions into one full-time position in hopes of providing more consistency in staffing and better service to students.
• approved the employment of Glenn Palmer of Winigan as an adjunct instructor for music courses. He will begin teaching on campus evening music appreciation classes in the Spring 2019 term.
• heard from Chief of Staff Kristi Harris about proposed changes to Title IX.
• set a board retreat for 3 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 17 at Joe’s Sheep Farm, located on NW Auk Lane. Among the items to be discussed are the president’s evaluation, the board’s self-evaluation, budget projections, the campus master plan and board policies.
The board held an executive session to discuss personnel and real estate matters, with no announcement made.
The next regular board meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 20. This is a change in the regular meeting date due to the regular meeting falling on the Christmas Day holiday.