The Houston School Board quickly chose its officers, calendar, committees and other official elements as they met for the first time in the new year on January 7, 2021. Officers are: Tom Stilin, chair; Mimi Carlson, vice chair; Josh Norlien, clerk; and Gene Lundak, treasurer. Meetings will remain on the first and third Thursdays of the month. Bremer Bank was again chosen as the official depository.
Since Ellen Bauman will no longer be producing the Houston Banner, a new paper had to be chosen as the official paper. After considering Houston County News, Fillmore County Journal, and Caledonia Argus, the board eventually chose the Argus. Although the Fillmore County Journal currently is the only paper sending a reporter to the meeting, the board decided to go with the Argus since it charged less for publishing the meeting minutes. Board members felt that the Argus is more widely read than the Houston County News; it also offers a free weekly shopper which will carry the minutes throughout the Houston area.
COVID updates
Superintendent Krin Abraham happily informed the board that for the fourth week in a row the COVID cases were single digit for the Houston zip code.
Sport practices have already begun, and games and competitions will begin January 14 for wrestling, boys and girls basketball, and dance. Spectators are to be kept 12 feet away from the players. Once again, seating areas have been marked off in the high school gym. Each athlete on junior varsity and varsity will get two tickets for spectators. C team will not allow spectators at the elementary gym; the gym is too small to allow that. The games will be televised, however, and hopefully some games will be scheduled at the high school so parents can attend.
Basketball players and dancers will be required to wear masks at practices and games and competitions. Wrestlers will not wear masks while actually wrestling, but will wear them while on the sidelines.
At this point, the CRF (COVID Relief Fund) numbers are not known. The school has some ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Relief) funds remaining. Abraham mentioned that some of that money may be used to revamp the HVAC systems at the high school to permit better air circulation.
The saliva tests for teachers have not arrived for the high school yet so saliva testing will not begin until January 20. Face shields are no longer required for the teachers.
Free lunch and breakfast will continue until June for students.
Apptegy approved
A new company, Apptegy, was chosen to host the school’s website. While there is an additional cost to the program, several other services will no longer need to be purchased, such as phone messaging, ADA compliance monitoring, and some components of SchoolToday. The school will need to keep School for sports scheduling and community education registrations.
The fee for Apptegy includes converting elements of the school’s old website to the new one. Superintendent Abraham enthused that the program will be much easier to use. Once something is added to the site, the information can also be sent across mobile apps, Facebook, Twitter, text messages, and voice calls. The principals will become the “experts” to help the teachers learn to use the new website.
Other business
In other business the board:
• Approved a resolution to allow the superintendent to make possible reductions suggestions — this may be needed since the school does not expect that all the extra 1,000+ students will remain in MNVA when things return to “normal”;
• Accepted the FY2020 audit;
• Extended the medical leave for COVID through March 31, 2021, with the option to extend more at that time.
The next Houston School Board meeting will be January 21, 2021, at 6 p.m. The meeting will be held face-to-face in the media center with the option for board members to Zoom in if necessary. The public is welcome to attend and to leave comments and questions on the school website.