The school board held their April meeting Monday, April 17 and approved a couple of fund transfers along with some policy updates.
The board approved a bus depreciation transfer of $30,034 from the general fund to the transportation fund. This is money that comes from the state to cover bus depreciation.
The board also approved $5,000 to be transferred for track maintenance.
The board also approved a Return to School Plan Update. This is something the state requires. They have to have this update posted on the school website and update it periodically.
Superintendent Jon Rehder presented a letter to the board concerning the upcoming override levy. The board approved sending it out.
Open enrollment policy 3010P was discussed. The state legislature changed the open enrollment policy statewide and they will need to update the local policy to correspond with it. Rehder said he and Denise Uhlenkott will be attending the Legislative Roadshow Wednesday at Moscow. He wants to get some  input there before finalizing a policy. The new state policy says if a student wants to come to your district you cannot refuse them with some exceptions. One is there has to be space in the school. This is one item Rehder said he wants to discuss with fellow superintendents. The policy has the school’s student to teacher ratios that they want to exceed. Action on this policy was tabled to the May meeting.
Policy 3530, dealing with suicide, was discussed with a revised paragraph. With the revision the policy was approved by the board.
The board approved a list of unused equipment being put out for bids, likely in June. Included is some shop equipment that is no longer used as well as the large ovens in the kitchens at the high school and elementary school that are being replaced. The reason they are holding off until June in calling for bids is they want to make sure the new ovens get installed and are working before letting the old ones go.
Policy manual updates were discussed with several of the option items discussed and approved. After the discussion the policy updates were approved by the board.
In the administrative reports Matt Elven discussed the Accreditation Engagement Report which showed the school getting strong scores in most areas. Places they got downgraded were mostly due to the fact that their teaching staff has only 1 or 2 members in most departments making it hard to have staff collaboration like larger schools would have.
He reported on the trapshooting field trip on March 23 with 16 students from high school PE classes making the trip to Cottonwood Gun Club.
10 students made the trip to Grangeville to tour Idaho Forest Group.
ISAT testing has been taking place since April 11 for students in grades 7, 8 and 11.
Forest Service and Clearwater Basin Youth Conservation Corps representatives visited April 6 and discussed summer employment options for students over 16.
A representative from Advanced Welding and Steel visited the shop classes on April 12 to discuss their apprenticeship/welding certificate programs. Advanced Welding also donated materials and blueprints to the welding class so they could make 8 benches to be used in the Cottonwood City Park.
Juniors took the SAT on April 12 at the Spirit Center.
On April 15 the baseball team traveled to Pullman to see a WSU baseball game against Arizona.
The final Knowledge Bowl meet of the season was held April 17 at Grangeville.
Jon Rehder reported they had a great turnout for parent/teacher conferences.
Colleen Sonnen organized a Wellness Day for K-6 on April 7.  They had numerous speakers come in and in 25-minute sessions.
John Eynon is taking the 6^th graders to a couple of music festivals: April 26 at CV and May 3 at Lewiston.
ISAT testing starts next week for grades 3-6.
In the facilities report Rehder said the Elementary School classroom addition is scheduled to go to bid Wednesday, April 19. Bid opening is set for May 8. Options will then be looked at and reviewed with bid approval on the agenda for the May 15 board meeting.
2 new convection ovens were ordered for the Elementary and High School cafeterias. They will be installed this summer.
Loads of gravel were delivered during Spring break to the lower parking lot at the high school. Cottonwood Highway District graded the lot and it turned out great.
LiveWire Electric took all the light fixtures down during Spring break. They cleaned all the fixtures and replaced the halogen bulbs with new LED lights. These are more energy efficient and longer-lasting. They also brightened up both gyms.
In his superintendent report Rehder said Laurie Karel is willing to come back next year but John Eynon is not.
They are looking at conducting interviews for the paraprofessional job opening the week of May 1.
They need a route bus driver and are looking for summer help.
They haven’t had any luck with a speech and language pathologist and are looking into 3 companies that provide online services.
The meeting adjourned at 8:30 p.m. The next regular meeting will be May 15 at 7 p.m.