The School Board held their April meeting Monday, April 15 and approved several new hires.
Lisa Hasselstrom was approved for hire as the new administrative assistant at Prairie Jr./Sr. High School. She will replace Cheri Holthaus who is retiring.
Matty Lustig was approved as the Library Aide/Sewing teacher. She will replace Della Gehring, who is retiring.
Ryan Hasselstrom will be returning to the football sidelines as he was approved as the new Prairie head football coach. He replaces TT Cain.
Allison Pape was approved for hire as the new 4^th grade teacher. Her family is moving here from Texas where she had most recently taught 5^th grade.
Retirements approved were Marlene Forsmann as an elementary paraprofessional and Gloria Funke as a jr./sr. high paraprofessional.
The board approved the bus depreciation of $41,666 being moved to the transportation account.
The board also approved moving $5,000 to the track maintenance account.
Finally the board approved a 3% pay increase for employees contingent on the levy passing.
The bulk of the meeting time was taken up with a couple of presentations.
Rich Bauscher, a former school superintendent, most recently at Middleton, now serves the state of Idaho in facilities. He was asked to come to the district and develop a 10-year facilities plan. He presented that plan at the meeting.
He went over hit 22-page report with the board. He noted that the district’s buildings are in excellent shape especially with the oldest being 64 and 67 years old.
Each building was reviewed with the Elementary School scoring a 90, which is good, the high school an 87 due mostly to the need for some window replacements and roof issues. The ag shop scored a 95 and the Auxiliary gym scored a 90.
Each building was knocked down due to no fire suppression system and that the fire alarms are not connected to the fire department. As superintendent of Middleton when their high school burned down, he is personally against water sprinkling as fire suppression. The newer part of the Middleton building had a sprinkler system and the repairs needed due to water damage cost more than rebuilding would have.
He commended superintendent Jon Rehder and maintenance supervisor Rick Forsmann for their work in keeping the buildings in good shape.
The other big topic of discussion was a proposal from volleyball coach Julie Schumacher. She has a chance to take the team to Orlando, FL for a tournament from Aug. 29-Sept. 1. As it turns out the biggest problem is that Schumacher needs to make a commitment within a couple of days. Board members had liability concerns and felt they were blindsided on this as the first they heard of it was when they received their agendas last week. Schumacher was asked to get some further information. Athletic Director Travis Mader said there is no problem with the state since the tournament is sanctioned by NFHS. A special meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, April 17 to make a decision.
In the administrative reports, Matt Elven reported they started ISAT testing last week and it continues into next week.
The new digital SAT test was taken by juniors on April 10.
Knowledge Bowl had their final competition on Monday, April 15 at Prairie.
District band competition is Wednesday, April 17.
7 juniors and seniors attending the Kamiah High School job fair that was put on by over 15 local businesses.
Parent/Teacher conferences were held March 20-21 with 21 parents attending.
A field trip to the Cottonwood Gun Club is set for April 24. The Rocky Mountain Elk foundation is sponsoring the event and covering costs.
Senior project demonstrations will start April 24
The Prom is scheduled for April 27.
There will be a mock accident scenario on May 6 at the lower parking lot at the high school.
The Dream It, Do It Conference will be May 14 at LCSC. Sophomores and juniors will be going with Mrs. Quintal and Mr. Hasselstrom.
The band will be going to Silverwood on May 1.
The Logs to Lumber tour at Idaho Forest Group will be May 9.
Jon Rehder reported they had 89% attendance at parent/teacher conferences with 202 of 227 students having at least one parent attend.
ISAT testing starts April 23 at the Elementary and continues through May 8.
In the facilities report Rehder said Rick Forsmann and Dave Shears are working on the northwest area of the football/track complex across from the maintenance shop. This becomes a muddy mess when vehicles park there for football games or track meets. They are fixing the drainage and adding pit run and then gravel.
They were awarded a $105,000 grant to help pay for enclosing the breezeway to the K-1 building. They will seek quotes from local contractors and hope to have this done before the start of the next school year.
In his superintendent’s report Rehder said John Eynon requested use of the elementary or high school band room from mid-May through the first week of August for the community band to practice in the evenings. Rehder said he didn’t see it being a problem.
In future agenda items the board will look at suggestions on tweaking the overnight out-of-state policy.
Gus Hoene also suggested moving resignations and retirements to the consent agenda since these are items that they shouldn’t really be having discussion on.
The meeting adjourned at 9:27 p.m. The next regular meeting of the board will be Monday, May 20 at 7 p.m.