The February 18 meeting of the Mabel-Canton School Board included a discussion led by Superintendent Gary Kuphal regarding the option of contracting with a firm to conduct a community survey to help Mabel-Canton make decisions about a possible building bond referendum. Kuphal’s written statement to the board said, in part, “I feel we need the information from the survey in order to accurately determine if we have support for a potential bond referendum, and to what degree taxpayers are willing to support it.”
Kuphal further explained that School Perceptions is the firm he recommends using, since they have an outstanding record of success in helping schools determine how much the taxpayers will approve. He shared that, regarding schools who have used School Perceptions prior to a referendum vote, “The last 43 districts where there were referendums, their information had 42 of the 43 passing.” He added that the one district whose referendum didn’t pass had not followed School Perceptions’ recommendation on how much to ask voters to approve.
Kuphal stated Mabel-Canton had a Comprehensive Facility Analysis performed by Jim Wilson, and that Mabel-Canton’s Facilities Committee has reviewed the initial findings from the Facility Analysis, and has come up with a list of possible areas to upgrade, including certain areas of flooring and windows, some bathrooms, remodeling the media center, bleachers, locker room remodeling, new playground equipment, adding more outlets in classrooms, and several other possible upgrades. He stressed that this is not a final list, but said, “These are items we discussed as possibilities.” The community survey would then help Mabel-Canton determine how many of the “wish list” items could be combined into a bond referendum that would likely garner community support. The board voted to approve contracting with School Perceptions to perform the survey. The proposed timeline shows that the survey will likely hit mailboxes in late March, and will run through mid-April. Recipients will have the option to complete the survey on paper or online.
Another topic that Kuphal brought up is that the school library recently checked to see which books have never been checked out from the library. He said that surprisingly, about 20% of the library’s books have never been checked out, going back 40 years. This represents roughly 3,000 books, and he said Mabel-Canton plans to pull those books off the shelves in the near future and offer them to individuals, or to an entity that would be interested. Otherwise, any unclaimed books will be discarded.
Student representative Sarina Stortz told the board that the recent flower sales and sucker sales were a success and that students seemed to enjoy these events. She also said that Mabel-Canton’s National Honor Society group has decided to obtain NHS medals for each applicable graduate to wear during the commencement ceremony. Student representative Colton Heintz-Kuderer summarized the upcoming events as part of national FFA week (February 23-29). He said plans include dress-up days, a petting zoo (in the welding shop), daily trivia, and a medallion hunt contest with daily clues.
The board gratefully acknowledged donations from Katie Larson ($100 to the library in memory of Dylan Delaney and Spencer Douglas), Anonymous ($25 for vocal music in memory of Spencer Douglas), Anonymous ($25 for Elementary Music), and Merle Peterson (donation of a Gemeinhardt flute and a Holton coronet for student use). Pre-K/Preschool teacher Amy Hoscheit shared Scholastic News materials she has obtained via a mini-grant received from the local Lions Club. Chris Miller added, “Many thanks to the Mabel Lions for doing those mini grants for staff here.”
The board approved new signage for the school’s front entrance, not to exceed $6,000. Superintendent Kuphal recognized board members for the participation on the board, in honor of Minnesota School Board Recognition Week, and he read a list of how long each member has served, including Cristal Adkins (16 years), Mark Wiedemann (8), Chris Miller (4), Jason Marquardt (4), Diane Wilder (3), Traci Livingood (2) and Dustin Tollefsrud (1). The next regular board meeting will be Tuesday, March 17 at 6 p.m. in the media center. As always, the public is welcome at all open meetings.
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