At their July 24 meeting Superintendent Richard Keith updated the Fillmore Central School Board on the facilities projects currently taking place in preparation for the 2018/19 school year. The high school lockers are being re-painted in a gray color, as they were beginning to chip. The Harmony baseball field relocation and parking lot are in progress. A lot of trees have been cut down for those projects, and the school will work with the City of Harmony to plant more trees in other locations. The cement work for the new preschool playground will be done by the middle of August and will give students access to the playground via a sidewalk. A few of the pieces from the elementary playground such as the stepping stones and ball toss will be moved to the preschool playground. The rest of the pieces do not meet current safety codes and so will need to be disposed of before the new playground equipment is installed. There was a discussion about posting them as free for taking with a signed release, but nothing was decided for certain.
Superintendent Keith mentioned that the state of Minnesota will be accepting grant applications on August 29 for extra grant money for schools. The money will be doled out randomly, and he predicted that Fillmore Central only had a one in one hundred chance of receiving any, but is hopeful that the school’s application will be selected. If received, the grant money will be used to help fund the relocation of the high school office for security purposes and possibly the relocations of the high school lunchroom and the media center.
Principal Heath Olstad noted that 116 students in grades 7-12 participated in the Summer Strength and Agility training. He extended the school’s gratitude to Coach Andrew Pederson for organizing the program and to all of the other coaches and drivers who volunteered as well.
The 2018-19 K-6, 7-12, faculty, paraprofessional, and coach handbooks were approved with minor changes.
Information about the new back-to-school conferences will be in the next school newsletter. Online scheduling is being set up for parents to register for a time slot with their child’s teacher for the conferences. An announcement will also be sent out via text, email, or phone call depending on which notification options were selected during the previous school year.
Resignation from daycare worker Addy Eiken and dance coach Kari Berg were approved, as well as resignations from custodians Dustin Ferrie and Ryder Witte.
Katelyn Brincks was hired as the high school administrative assistant for a 215 day contract. Elementary school administrative assistant Brenda Ristau’s contract was adjusted from 200 days to 215. Kyle Blahnik was hired as the head baseball coach and Kim Underbakke as a paraprofessional at the elementary school. Jordan Miller was approved as a volunteer coach for football.
Superintendent Keith asked the board to approved job postings for two additional staff positions. The first position is for a third kindergarten teacher. The incoming kindergarten class is up to 48 students so he would like to add a third section in order to keep the class sizes smaller. The second position is for an additional paraprofessional to supervise students when using a flex-learning platform. This would allow teachers to assign work to their students via Schoology during the teacher’s absence if a sub cannot be found. The postings were approved.
An open enrollment request was approved for a Leroy-Ostrander family was approved for students in sixth, eighth, and tenth grades.
The Long-Term Facilities Maintenance plan was reviewed and approved in preparation for submitting it to the state by July 31.
A quote from Stateline ICF for the preschool playground grading and concrete installation in the amount of $17,922.00 was approved.
The board reviewed and approved their board goals for 2018-19 as part of the World’s Best Workforce plan.
The next Fillmore Central School Board meeting will be held on August 28 at 6:30 p.m. in the high school media center.
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