| School
budget approved
The budget for the 2012-13 school year was approved after a budget hearing at the start of the June school board meeting Monday, June 25. There were several recommendations for hire that were approved. They were for Jennifer Riener as a special education aide for a student with special needs; Sherry Holthaus as cheer coach, Ed Holthaus as junior high football head coach, Mike Kindrick as junior high assistant football coach and John Schmidt as a volunteer assistant for junior high football. A resignation was accepted from Joan Terhaar as head cook. Superintendent Rene’ Forsmann said they have several applicants but have yet to do any interviews. Roy Schumacher also turned in his resignation as a board member and recommended Aaron Hinkelman as his replacement. Hinkelman was approved and will take over the position at the July meeting. Ryan Hasselstrom did some training of the board members on gmail, helping them set up school email addresses and introducing them to Google Docs. The reasoning behind migrating all the school email accounts to gmail from their own server is that when the power goes down now they will still have their email and won’t have to reboot everything when the power comes back on. Hasselstrom also reported that football camp went well although the competition wasn’t as stiff as it had been when they were going to Montana. He said 28 of the 32 signed up for football were able to attend camp. In the facilities update Mrs. Forsmann reported the Elementary School annex is still online for completion in July. She says she sees about $60,000 remaining in the MAFA account once that work is done. She also reported she would like to see that money plus any they would get this year from Secure Rural Schools put toward some maintenance items such as the steps from the entryway sidewalk to the west end of the north wing of the Elementary School. There is also some work that needs to be done to the upper parking lot at the High School, especially where the garbage trucks back in. She said doing a BST would be considerably less than paving with asphalt. In her principal report she noted that the last day of school was filled with activities. She also noted Ride Idaho will be here August 5-6-7 and the district will be providing a bus to be used as a shuttle between the park and the Monastery. The Elementary kitchen will be used by the boys basketball team to provide dinner for the group on August 6 and the Boy Scouts will use it on August 7 to provide breakfast. She reported the Center for Discovery is using the library on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a summer reading program. Summer School will be July 30-August 10. As superintendent she reported she attended the June Chamber meeting. She will be in conferences, meetings and trainings in June and in August. The teachers have been and will be in many different trainings during the summer with every one of those having a technology element. Prairie High School students will receive laptops in 2013-14. High School teachers will receive them in late summer/early fall this year. Jeff Martin has been chosen to be a professional development trainer for our region. PHS also received a grant from the Idaho Education Network to upgrade and move the broadcast equipment. She said they are still awaiting notification on the extension of Secure Rural School dollars. They may hear something by August. The summer food program is underway and had 85 children on Monday and 120 last Thursday which included sack lunches for swim lessons. The Raspberry Festival will use the High School Gym on August 5 with the Gym refinishing set for August 7-10. Teacher evaluations will be done using parental input and student achievement as part of the evaluation. New Prairie Jr./Sr. High School principal Carrie Nygaard was in attendance at the meeting but hadn’t been on board long enough to have a report. The meeting adjourned at 8:10 p.m. The next regular meeting will be Monday, July 16 at 7 p.m. |
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