The Garretson School board held their regular monthly meeting on May 13. The main topics of this meeting were when to set the new date for the end of the school year and what company to award the contract for the Request for Proposals that the school sent out to any/all interested parties.
The board first reviewed their consent agenda which included the payment of current bills, approval of financial reports, and fuel quotes. Before review, Board President Nordstrom asked that teacher Kelly Block be added to the list of resignations in the consent agenda.
Included in that consent agenda were resignations of Stacey Beckman as head volleyball coach with no stipulations and Jodi Gloe also resigned from her post as all school play director with the stipulation that she recruit someone else to take up the duties.
It should be noted here that S. Beckman is the wife of Nathan Beckman, who was temporarily suspended this past year, with no official reason stated to the public as to why.
No statements have been made publicly, but it could likely be inferred that N. Beckman will also not be returning as head basketball coach next year, so the school will likely need to fill vacancies in both positions.
Having no old business or conflict of interest discussion the board moved on to the Pride Award.
The board honored school librarian, Tiffany Radford. At the last school board meeting she gave a demonstration about the Maker’s Space program, which she had spearheaded in addition to her normal duties as librarian. Palisades Oil has contributed financially to this program, with Blue Dragon Fill-ups, giving a portion of their fuel sales to this project every first Wednesday of the month. With this money, and a Maker’s Space grant, Radford has purchased robots, tablet computers, and hosted classes on programing code for both self-made video games, building blocks and Lego model making.
“It’s just so much fun to be a part of, to watch these kids let their imaginations guide them,” Radford said. “They have an idea and they use the tools to make that idea real. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is.” Elementary principal Teresa Johnson spoke up and was
extremely complementary on what Radford had done with Garretson Elementary students. Look for more on this in a future issue of the Gazette.
Next was the first controversial issue of the meeting, the end of the school year. Parents and students had both expressed frustrations as to not knowing what the end date of school would be this year because of all of the cancelations due to weather. Making up every day missed would have seen the school still in session into June. Supt. Guy Johnson began the discussion by stating that the school has already made its required number of teaching hours to students.
There were three proposals that Supt. Johnson put forward. First was last day of school on May 23rd, teacher last day May 24th. The next proposal was that the last day be the 24th & the teacher last day to be Tuesday the 28th. The last was that the last day of school would be Tuesday May 28th, after Memorial Day with the last teacher day May 29th. Lots of discussion followed.
Board member Rachel Hanisch argued it should be Thursday, but her motion to make that so died for a lack of a second. Board Member Tony Martens made the argument that missed days of school should be made up, and people should expect that they will be. Nobody controls the weather, so you do what you have to do, that means going to school late in the year whether you like it or not. He said that long ago, this school, and SD schools in general, abandoned the Labor Day to Memorial Day practice, and that this isn’t the first, or the last time school has been frequently called off for bad weather.
In the end, the board made the decision to go with the compromise plan of the last day of school being Friday the 24th, and that the teachers would return the Tuesday after Memorial Day to finish their business and checkout for the summer. The final vote was 3-2.
The next item was also discussed at length, though there was much less disagreement with the final decision. As their renewable contract with Lunchtime Solutions was now coming to an end, school Business Manager Emily Bucher had put out a request for proposals for a contractor to fill the school’s lunch management needs. Two companies submitted proposals, Lunchtime Solutions and Thrive Nutrition Services.
The board reviewed the materials from both proposals and Supt. Johnson summarized several points. Both companies, he said, had solid reputations in our state and in region. The sticking point for the board, as is almost always the case in these matters, is cost. The bid proposed by Thrive Nutrition Services was significantly lower than the bid from Lunchtime Solutions, to the tune of several thousand dollars less. Martens pointed out that it’s enough of a savings that just couldn’t be ignored, as the budget could certainly delegate that money elsewhere. So despite the school’s good working relationship with Lunchtime Solutions, and that the school’s current kitchen staff will likely part from their employment under LtS, and have to be re-interviewed and re-hired by the new company, the board voted to accept the bid from TNS. Supt. Johnson said that he was assured by TNS that preferential hiring of the current staff would be their practice.
The board did agree to renew membership the South Dakota High School Activities Association and decided which candidates and issues to vote for in favor of on their annual ballot for the association.
The board also agreed to renew their agreement with the Orthopedic Institute of Sioux Falls and the summer Sports Enhancement Program for students. It’s less training for a specific sport, but focused in making the participating students better all-around athletes. Business Manager Bucher also had a preliminary budget to present for the board to look over. The board decided to take a look over this budget for a month and discuss it at the June meeting.
Several policy revisions were then discussed and those with a second reading were voted on. Supt. Johnson, toward the tail end of the public meeting, let the board know that he’d had further discussions with GNR controls and UNESCO concerting the building’s infrastructure. At last month’s meetings there were solid concerns as to how long the large chiller would last the district. Supt. Johnson discussed repairs versus replacement, and he advised the board that it was too late in the season to expect a return on bids for the work, but that with the upcoming budget discussions the board would need to decide what course they should take.
The board then went into executive session from 7:44 p.m. to 10:25 p.m. to talk personnel issues and contract negotiations. They adjourned at 10:26 p.m.
