Garretson school talks new HVAC and new public comment policies (Preview)

The Garretson School Board met on Oct. 14. The main topics of the meeting were reviewing policies on staff evaluations and revising the language on the polices of public participation in board meetings, and what to do about the school’s aging HVAC system.

The board began by approving the regular and consent agenda. This included approval of the board minutes, awarding of quotes for fuel and declaring an old laminator surplus of no value to be scrapped.

They had no old business so they proceeded directly to new, which was their approval of the school’s annual report. Their report had been approved by the State’s Department of Education and the board approved.

Next, the board addressed issues of infrastructure. The school’s chiller system has been repaired constantly over the last few years.

“It got us through this past summer and we’re happy about that, but the time has come to replace it,” said Supt. Guy Johnson.

Also, as of the special meeting last month, they also know much of the HVAC system needs repair and replacement.

“Thankfully we can structure the project in such a way that we can spread the cost out over two fiscal years,” said Supt. Guy Johnson.

The idea would be to replace the cooling unit during the tail end of this fiscal year and do the other repair at the start of the next fiscal year, so that all repair and replacement projects can be done without overly taxing the Capital Outlay budget or needing any special certificates to pay for the project.

The board then debated and set a date for their annual board retreat to be held on Feb. 19^th at Tailgators in Brandon.

Then the board reviewed new potential policy changes for the annual teacher evaluations. Overall, the board liked the changes, with board President Shannon Nordstrom saying that they “matched well with our revised goals and mission statements.”

In first readings, the board discussed changes to the Public Participation at Board Meetings policy (BDDH). This had been read before, but the policy committee had made enough changes and revisions from last time that it remained as a first reading. The summary of the discussion is thus, the board takes the line that a school board meeting is a meeting in public, not a public meeting. Public comments are welcome, but need to be structured. A new SD law has been passed regarding public commentary at school board meetings and the school’s policy needed to be changed to reflect that. However, they have a procedure they want to follow.

Here is the current version of the policy from the school’s website archive:

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AT BOARD MEETINGS:

The board welcomes the public to attend its sessions so they may become better acquainted with the operation and programs of the schools.

In order to assure that citizens who wish to appear before the board may be heard, and, at the same time, conduct its meetings properly and efficiently, the following procedures have been adopted:

1. Any individual who desires to speak about an item on the agenda is asked to present the "request to speak" to the superintendent, the business manager, or the board president. The request may be communicated orally prior to the meeting or in written form.

2. Persons who wish to speak about an item that is not on the agenda are asked to present such request to the superintendent or the board president prior to the beginning of the meeting. Persons who present such a request will be allowed to speak about the topic before the meeting is adjourned.

3. Citizens who desire board action on an item not on the agenda will submit the item to the superintendent's office at least ten (10) days prior to the meeting of the board at which they wish for the item to be considered.

4. Presentations should be as brief as possible. Unless an extension of time is granted, a speaker will be limited to five (5) minutes. The board vests in its president or other presiding officer authority to terminate the remarks of any individual when they do not adhere to the rules established above. LEGAL REF.: SDCL 1-25-1 (Official Meetings Open to the Public)

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