The Board of Education met in the evening on Monday, December 18, 2023 where they discussed the budget for the second half of 2023, and voted on several resolutions involving staffing, policy, and the acquisition of a new school bus.

The meeting began with a short statement from a member of the community and was followed by a presentation put on by two students from Mrs. Hilary Ludecke’s classroom. Mrs. Ludecke teaches science at the high school. Students Angus Horne and Danny Goss discussed how they were hatching salmon eggs in the classroom and raising them for eventual release in mid-May.

Following this was a quick look at how the schools are performing. The trend toward proficiency for the 2022-2023 showing a recovery to before covid numbers, with School Quality and Student Success rising from 76.29 in 2018-2019 to 84.44 for 2022-2023. A similar trend was also noted for Mather Elementary.

Superintendent Mike Travis followed this discussion with an examination of the current budget. Mr. Travis explained the differences between the original budget set for this time period, and then laid out the points where the budget has changed since these numbers were proposed. The year is ending quite well, and though there are additional expenses there have likewise been additional grants and revenue which has covered these items and left the district with 15% fund balance percentage remaining at the end of the year.

The forecasted budget for 20242025 has been set as well.

The meeting then focused on several points which needed to be voted on.

The topic of a Saturday School Interventionist at the high school incited some discussion as to what this program would look like. The idea is to give kids an opportunity to attend school on Saturdays under the supervision of teacher Steve Tyner. In this program, youth would be able to gain extra tutoring if needed and to gain attendance hours to make for lost time. This motion was approved.

Food service staff was discussed next with approval quickly given for new hire Heidi Pernick.

The need for a Long Term Special Education Teacher Substitute was next on the list, beginning with the revelation that the new hire they needed was already on staff working as a paraprofessional. Connie Dube, who is working toward her Masters in Special Education was approved to take on this position.

A need for a Mathematics and Reading Interventionist at Mather came up next with a vote to hire retired teacher, Paula Brock for this position.

Finally came the discussion of a compensation increase for Paraprofessionals. As it was pointed out, the expense of having to find and train new paraprofessionals is costly. With this in mind, a recommendation to raise pay by $0.63 an hour to make an hourly wage of $15.00 for paraprofessionals was quickly approved.

With staff adjustments out of the way, the discussion moved on to the need for a new school bus. The goal of the school district has been for some time to retire several of the aging fleet of buses. A 2025 International School Bus which can seat 77 students is currently being built and will be available in Mid-January for a cost of $144,000, a savings on the initial estimate of almost $6,000. The motion to take advantage of this opportunity was granted, allowing for the retirement of bus 9-A. A game plan for what to do with this and another bus which has been retired in recent years will be discussed at the next meeting.

Finally, approval of several NEOLA policies was given, with a delay granted in regards to voting on NEOLA policy 1540.

This ended new business for this meeting.

The next meeting was set for 6:00 p.m. on January 15, 2024.