| Hot
lunch prices raised 5 cents
Della Gehring was sworn in as the newest member of the school board at the regular July meeting Monday, July 19. 
The board didn’t have a quorum available to even start the meeting until outgoing board member Dan Forsmann arrived. Brit Groom and Roy Schumacher were absent leaving just John Nida and Kellie Bruner until Gehring could be sworn in. Nida was re-elected as board chairman with Schumacher re-elected as vice-chairman. Nida, Schumacher and clerk/treasurer Denise Uhlenkott will be the check signers with at least two signatures required on all checks. The board approved an increase in the hot lunch program. All student hot lunch prices will go up 5 cents while adult meals will go up 25 cents. The hot lunch program lost about $16,000 last year but that was partially offset by the federal money coming in for the breakfast and summer programs. Lynn Rehder reported they are getting 60 to 70 youngsters per day in for the summer free lunch program. Bus rental and facility use rates were kept the same as last year. The Per Diem rates were raised from the $5 for breakfast, $7 for lunch and $11 for dinner with a $20 per day cap to $7 for breakfast, $9 for lunch and $13 for dinner with a $25 per day cap. The state allows up to $30 per day. This is reimbursement for district employees who are out of town on district business. The board voted to keep the same meeting date, the third Monday of each month, but voted to move the starting time up to 7 p.m. from the current 7:30 p.m. This will start with the August meeting. The district received 3 bids for the middle school window project. S & W bid $19,950; Arnzen Building bid $22,386 and Wimer Corp. bid $18,544. Wimer Corp.’s low bid was approved by the board. This project will replace the inside loop of windows at the Middle School. Superintendent Stan Kress said the outside loop were done 15 or so years ago but he wasn’t very impressed with the job. He said they just covered up the windows with no insulation so that there was no real energy savings realized. Kress reported they are still working on the fall extracurricular assignments. He’s proposing Ryan Hasselstrom as head football coach with Mike Sonnen and Roger Holthaus as possible assistants. The budget has only two paid coaches so something will need to be worked out there. Danette Coleman is proposed as head volleyball coach with Kelsey Edwards as assistant coach. Natalie Wimer is being proposed for dance squad with the cheer squad advisor still being worked on. Kress said none of those were firmed up as yet and asked the board for some latitude so that they can get these positions in place. They’ll need to start before the next board meeting. The board granted Kress’ request providing that he stays within budget on the coaching salaries. Kress reported the engineer is still working on specifications for the heating system work at the Middle School. It should be ready for bid opening though by next meeting. The curbing is done on the track at the football field and pipe has been purchased for extending the watering capability from the new well to the middle school lawn and the baseball field. Renee’ Forsmann reported she has been attending training on ISIMS and will be attending several more and will then train the staff on what she learns. Kress reported that although Prairie schools tested over and above the state goals on the Idaho Reading Indicator and Idaho Standards and Achievement Test that many schools did not. He passed around a list of 30 some schools that didn’t make the IRI goals and said there were something like 84 schools that didn’t make ISAT goals. This coming year’s sophomore class will be the first that will have to pass the ISAT as a state condition for graduation. They first get to take the test as sophomores which gives them several opportunities to retake it if they fail. They can take it up to twice per year. He said the board needs to look into putting into policy some conditions whereby a student could still graduate even though they fail the ISAT. He said the superintendents association is working up some guidelines so that you don’t wind up with students shopping around at other school districts for the best criteria to help them graduate should they struggle with the ISAT. The board meeting adjourned at 9:15 p.m. The next meeting will be Monday, August 16 at 7:00 p.m. |
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