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School Board meets The school board held their March meeting Monday, March 21, and approved several resignations. Kim Schumacher resigned from her athletic director duties. Principal Matt Elven said he and Travis Mader will get together to discuss what they are looking for to fill this position. Kayla Schumacher resigned from her para-professional position. Carmen Sangster resigned as a high school English teacher. The board approved another section of policy updates. The budget hearing was set for June 13 at 5:30 p.m. This is a week earlier than the regular board meeting date as superintendent Jon Rehder would not be available on June 20. They moved the time up to 5:30 to accommodate board member Keith Holcomb, who has a city council meeting on that date at 7 p.m. They also approved a couple of overnight trips. One is for FFA students to attend the 4-day leadership conference in Twin Falls. The other is for the HOSA students to attend the State HOSA Leadership Conference. In administrative reports, Elven talked about the Junior High Tech Room upgrades. They are replacing computer workstations and desks. It brings it more inline with the high school tech room. Knowledge Bowl had a virtual meet hosted by Timberline and Prairie took first place. They are also in first place in the knowledge bowl league. March 17-19 Mr. Hasselstrom and Mr. Martin took 6 qualifying BPA students to compete at the State BPA conference in Boise. On March 19 Mr. Mader took 36 of his sports history students to Spokane to watch a Spokane Chiefs hockey game. Suzi Quintal and Cheri Holthaus are attending a Powerschool training in Las Vegas this week. Elven reported the spring sports are all up in participation over last year. Track has 27 athletes this year, up 6 from last year. Softball had 17, up 7 from last year. Baseball had 17, up 2 from last year. Junior High track has 41 turned out. They have their full 36 donors signed up for the Blood Drive at the high school on March 29. They need 30 successful donors to receive a $2,000 STEM grant from Vitalant. Parent-teacher conferences are March 30-31 from 2:30 to 7 p.m. they will also be holding the Showcase Night on Wednesday with haystacks served from 4-6 p.m. and the sewing class raffling off quilts. Rehder reported he has completed his classroom observations and will have his summative evaluations completed by May 6. Hunter Safety class went well Feb. 28-March 4. All students participating passed their exam and are certified. Thanks to Erin Landers and Alex Arnold for teaching the course. The 4th graders took a field trip to Dworshak on March 15. Elementary parent-teacher conferences will be March 29-30 from 3:30 to 7 p.m. There is no school on Friday, April 1 which serves as the start of Spring Break. In his facilities report Rehder said they received the final bill for the new water pump installation that serves both the Monastery and high school. Camera installation may be delayed as CompuNet doesn’t have the supplies needed to do it during Spring Break. It looks like they may need to bring gravel in for the parking lots at both the Elementary and High School parking lots. On the gym foyer expansion/gym restrooms, Wemhoff Architecture has done some design work and will be contacting engineers. They are looking at Fall 2023 to complete this project. Carpet tile installation at the high school is set to start June 6. After Lindsley’s finishes there they will move to the Elementary School to complete tile installation in classrooms and then move to the Auxiliary Gym to tile the area between the bathrooms. The exterior door on the east side of the Auxiliary Gym is just going to be insulated and sealed over. It currently sucks the heat out of the building and is not needed as there are other exits in each classroom and the gym. Rick Forsmann has been busy running new water pipes at the Elementary School. They will also remove the old water hears and replace them with new ones. They are working with LiveWire Electric on an Avista grant to switch all the lights in the Auxiliary Gym to LED lights. It is looking like a project for this summer. In his superintendent report Rehder listed the positions that they will need to fill due to resignations/retirements. They are: 6th grade teacher, K-12 Music teacher, Part-time cook, high school paraprofessional, 7th-9th grade English teacher and head football coach. They are looking to hire another person for summer help. They will post this after Spring Break. Rehder said the State Insurance Plan is looking more promising for the district. It should save both the district and the staff money in the long run. It appears there will be an increase in both certified and classified funding from the state but they do not yet know how much it would be for our district. There is a push for all-day, every day Kindergarten. Rehder said even if it is improved statewide it would likely be at least as year before we would implement that at Prairie. They would need to figure out the logistics as it may require hiring another kindergarten teacher. He said in his Covid update that things are getting closer to back to normal. There are still cases reported but they are drastically lower. The meeting adjourned to an executive session at 7:45 p.m. The next regular meeting of the board will be Monday, April 18 at 7 p.m. |
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