Construction on Lanesboro Public School’s daycare expansion will begin at the end of July, with a projected completion date of August 11. The district is looking forward to growing the daycare program and continuing to meet the needs of the community.
Superintendent Matt Schultz informed the school board that the district is one of the finalists for the $25,000 Monsanto grant and will find out in August if they received it. He also noted that insurance will be covering the repair costs for the east side of the gymnasium roof.
The board congratulated Lanesboro student Claire Pieper on being awarded a gold medal at the FCCLA National Leadership Conference in Nashville in the job interview category.
James Semmen was hired as the girls basketball head coach, Teresa LaFrenier as a 1.0 elementary teacher, and Alex Aiken as the boys track and field head coach. Aiken is a former Lanesboro graduate and is excited to be returning to the school as a coach.
The board approved the certified and non-certified employee handbooks. A milk bid from Polka Dot Dairy was accepted. Annual policies 214, 410, 413, 414, 522, 524, 616, and 807 were also reviewed and approved with no changes except for some to policy 616.
The board discussed the Minnesota School Board Association’s Summer Institute which will take place August 8 and 9. None of the board members will be able to attend, but Superintendent Schultz is planning to make the trip.
The law firm of Rupp, Anderson, Squires & Waldspurger, P.A. was approved as the district’s legal firm for their expertise in personnel and education laws. Nethercut Law was approved to handle the school’s property and business questions.
The board reviewed and approved the district’s Long Term Facilities Maintenance Plan. An Education Services agreement with Hiawatha Valley Education District was also approved.
An additional half-day workshop for all non-certified staff was approved for January 22, 2018, to allow for ALICE training. ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate, which are all part of the active shooter training that the program provides. Board member Terri Scott had taken the training as part of her job as a teacher in another school district and was in favor of bringing it to Lanesboro, noting that it approaches an active shooter situation from a fight and flee aspect versus the traditional hide and wait one.
The district will be paying a flat fee for the training and should have some room for local law enforcement and city employees to join the workshop of they would like.
The board reviewed and approved the meal rates for the 2017-18 school year. Prices will increase by 10 cents due to a stipulation by federal law. K-6 students will pay $2.35 for meals and students in grades 7-12 will pay $2.65.
The district will continue to offer sports and other extracurricular activities at no cost to the students. This includes summer rec activities.
Memberships in the Minnesota School Board Association and the Minnesota Rural Education Association were renewed by the board.
Daycare manager Heidi Brown was approved as a signatory to a school-issued credit card from the Merchant’s Bank to allow her to more easily purchase supplies for the daycare.
The Lanesboro school district will be adopting the Read Well by Third Grade program. “It outlines our plan to ensure that our kids are reading well by third grade,” Superintendent Schultz said, noting that doing so should increase test scores across the board.
Hiawatha Valley Education District has a records retention policy that Lanesboro can utilize as well as they are a part of HVED. At this time, the school legally has to keep every booklet filled out for every child who tests for special education. This has become a storage issue and adopting the HVED policy would allow Lanesboro to shred outdated booklets with permission from the students’ parents. Only the most current booklet would need to be kept. The board approved the policy addition.
The next Lanesboro school board meeting will be held on August 17 at 7 p.m.