Chatfield Board Updated on SEL Preschool Grant

At January 10, 2024, school board meeting, board members Jill Harstad, David Sowinski, Mark Johnsrud, Katie Priebe, Josh Thompson and Tom Keefe were present as well as Superintendent Ed Harris, principals, Shane McBroom and Eric Nelson; LuAnn Kleven, Community Education director; Dan Schindler, Activities director; and Trista O’Connor, business manager. Student Senate member Katryn Johnson was also present.
This meeting was an organizational meeting since it was the first one in 2024. Katy Priebe will remain as chair with Tom Keefe serving as vice-chair. Josh Thompson will continue as clerk and Jill Harstad as treasurer. All committee assignments will remain the same.
Katryn Johnson, Student Senate representative, stated that they sold 200 cookies during their fundraising activity for Christmas. The plan is for them to do a similar activity for the Snowball activities the week of February 12.
LuAnn Kleven updated the board on the SEL (Social Emotional Learning) grant that was received. The kick-off this fall had 27 families come for breakfast and a variety of activities that promoted Social Emotional Learning for young children in the home. The grant has been used to support the “Choose Love” curriculum and to also purchase a new assessment to better assess Social-Emotional Development in pre-school students. Teachers have reported that they see students implementing the strategies that are introduced in the SEL curriculum. Klevan is looking at identifying additional resources to sustain this program. She stated that registration for preschool in 2024-25 will begin in March. Information will be mailed to families on the ages 0-4 census or can be found on the Community Education page of the school website.
Eric Nelson, high school principal, went over the graduation requirements; recommendation for the Class of 2028 and beyond that will meet the statutory requirements from the 2023 legislative session. The number of credits will remain the same but Spanish 1A (.5) will be moved to the high school, Ethnic Studies-Minority Voices in Literature will be added and two electives in math; one of which Personal Finance from the business department will be offered. He also thanked the CEF (Chatfield Education Foundation) for grants given for incentive gift cards, rehearsal space rental at Potter Auditorium for the One Act Play and equipment for Mr. Willette’s classroom.
Elementary principal, Shane McBroom, explained the work that is being done to meet the requirements of the new Minnesota READ (Reading to Ensure Academic Development) Act. In the coming week, the staff will learn about approved curriculums and what that will mean for their reading programs. There are three approved Reading Trainings the state is requiring staff to complete. Each of these has a minimum of 40 hours of required training and all staff who provide reading support will need to be trained in one of the three by July 1, 2025. Many of the trainings will be through Zoom or virtual, but this will be a huge undertaking. McBroom thanked the volunteers who helped with the free-throw competition as part of the physical education class. There were 245 students from grades 3-6 that participated in this event. The NWEA Winter Benchmark testing has started and the data will be used to monitor progress as well as identifying students that may be needing additional support in our intervention program.
Activities director, Dan Schindler, informed the board that they are in the process of hiring a coach for trap shooting, which is now part of the MSHSL. He reports that wrestling is off to a great start, dance scores continue to improve, boys basketball is rebuilding after losing all the starters to graduation and girls basketball is doing well. Junior high Knowledge Bowl is advancing to region and speech will have their first meet on February 3 and One Act Play’s first performance is January 13.
Superintendent Harris commented that in light of the school shooting in Iowa last week, “The school’s bullying and harassment policies and practices are current.” He stated that “we routinely practice/drill safety procedure in both buildings. Over the course of this past year, we have collaborated with local law enforcement/emergency services as well as Olmsted and Fillmore County law enforcement/emergency services on school procedure evaluation and local dry run drill. Administration attended a two-day training last summer with SE MN Emergency Management units on emergency protocols and reunification methods for school.”
Under the consent agenda the board approved:
• Minutes of the December 13, 2023, meeting minutes
• Spring coaches: Junior high baseball – Shane McBroom and Brandon Himle; Junior high softball – Angela Severson, Brent Sprout; JV softball – Jon Sutherland; Track and Field – Nikki DeBuhr, Jennifer Bradt, Scott Schmaltz, Damien Nickelsen, Barb Storsveen and .5 time Maddie Kammer and Shane Fox;
• Resignations – Tom Bance, JV baseball
• Job postings: Head trap coach, assistant trap coaches and JV baseball
• New hires: Head trap coach, assistant trap coaches
Under action items, the board approved an individual teacher contract update and the annual payment to the city of Chatfield of $15,000 for CCTV and $5,000 for video streaming. This is the annual agreed upon payment to support live streaming of school events.
The meeting was adjourned. The next meeting of the Chatfield School Board will be February 14 at 7 p.m. in the Forum room at the high school.