| School
board approves budget
The budget for the 2015-16 school year was approved at the June meeting of the School Board held Monday, June 15. The budget was approved after the budget hearing was held In other business the preschool agreement was approved. The agreement is needed as a private preschool is using a public facility. It’s a good tradeoff though as the preschool coordinator is also hired by the district for the afterschool program. Levy election results were discussed. The 71% approval was the highest ever. In the facilities update Superintendent Rene’ Forsmann reported some of the summer projects have been started. The new cement slab at the Elementary School which will be paid for from the Blue Ribbon School award, has been formed and is nearly ready for the concrete. Work has started on the security systems for the schools. Safe school monies is paying for this. Estimated costs are about $4900 at the Elementary and just over $3700 at the jr./sr. high. When done most of the entry doors will remain locked at all times except for the main entrances and those using the main entrance will have to be buzzed in. Along with this a 6-8 ft. fence will be built around the lower entrance to the junior high. This will keep students enclosed when moving between the shop and the main building. Work has also started on the heating system at the high school shop. Some painting and touch up at both schools will be done this summer and one student’s senior project is to repaint the high school kitchen. In administrative reports Forsmann reported they finished up the school year at the Elementary with a field day with students being released at 1:30 p.m. Last Tuesday several of the teachers analyzed testing data from the IRI, MAP, and STAR Reading and Math tests. They wont have the data from the ISAT until mid June. Schedules and class lists have been made for the next school year and are available to students and parents. In her superintendent’s report she noted that curriculum leaders met June 8 to discuss the progress made in aligning curricula in social studies, science, math and language arts. The large bulk of the recently reapproved Secure Rural Schools monies came in this week. They received $16,320.97 in March with $366,212.21 arriving Monday. If the bill had not been reauthorized by Congress, the $16,000 would have been all the district would have received this year. The district is working with the Orofino School District on sharing a school psychologist as the deal with Grangeville was discontinued by Grangeville. Carrie Nygaard was unable to attend but in her report she noted that Prairie High School was third overall in the 1-A division for the Schools of Excellence among 28 schools competing. Nygaard recommended that Cheri Holthaus be named to the HOSA advisor position being vacated by Zara Hasselstrom. This is a volunteer, unpaid position. The FFA students went to conferences at the U of I on June 3-5. The football team traveled to football camp in Montana this past weekend. 14 team members attended. Girls basketball will be taking 3 teams to Nyssa this weekend for a camp/tournament. 28 girls will be going. Students did an excellent job of getting checked out and leaving the building in excellent shape for cleaning at the end of the school year. The meeting adjourned at 7:36 p.m. The next regular meeting will be Monday July 20 at 7 p.m. This will also be the annual meeting. |
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