Garrick Moritz, Gazette
It was a short meeting of the Garretson School Board on Monday, Aug. 12, with only three board members in attendance: new president Natasha Mendoza, Justin VanDeBerg, and Wyatt Compton.
They removed one item from the agenda, which was committee assignments for board members because they wanted the whole board there for that discussion item and Mendoza requested to be added to the administrative reports. She wanted to give a report about the training she’d so far received to be the new board president.
Their first major item was a budget review, and Business Manager Jacob Schweitzer had no changes to present to the board, so it was tabled to be voted on by the next meeting.
The only policy items up for review were informational, no first or second readings or drafts for new policies. The board read over their complaints and conflict resolution policies, and noted that it had not been modified since 2014. Superintendent Guy Johnson said that with updates to state law it was time to look it over and make sure everything was correct, but so far he didn’t see a need for any changes.
With no other business, they went to administrative reports, and Mendoza led off these reports. She attended ASBSD conferences and training seminars and said it was extremely helpful to get her acclimated to her new role as board president.
“I just wanted to give a little bit of a summary of what I did last week,” she said. “On Wednesday, I went to a President training I thought it was really good. This was included in it eight characteristics of effective school boards. I actually met with the same the person who was going to train this in September too. Referring back to the policies we just were speaking about, something that we certainly should utilize more is committees. Committees are a very effective way to sometimes get a lot of work done. Some of the things that were suggested was a policy committee, a budget committee, strategic planning committee and activities committee. So that's something that in future board meetings, we can look at doing more of. A pretty big topic was the use of cell phones or other such devices in schools. A lot of schools are or have adopted policies for this. We've been hearing a lot about schools like Gettysburg right now in the in the news, so they possibly think there might be some legislation coming out at some point as well. I'm sure we'll be talking about that and deep diving into it. Probably ask our teachers, our administrators, what the issues in our school are with it too. There have been numerous studies about the mental health effects that social media has, the bullying that can go along with it. So that might be something we form a committee about.”
Superintendent Guy Johnson then gave his report.
“Teacher in-service is starting next week, so summer is pretty much over. We’ve got three days scheduled with a lot of content for our teachers and staff,” he said.
Aside from required state mandated information, teachers will be briefed by representatives of Children’s Home Society to help them recognize signs of abuse, and teachers will undergo CPR training.
Supt. Johnson reported that the water damage in the FFA building has been repaired and the source of the problem found. When the roofers found no problems in the area, Steve’s Electric and Plumbing did an intense search and found a huge clog in the floor drain. They cleared the clog, and replaced the drain pipe with a wider-width drain, a deeper basin, and a much larger pan underneath the HVAC unit, which should clear the standing water problem. Intek Cleaning and Restoration is coming on August 29th and after that, they will decide on what materials the walls should be replaced with to prevent future mold issues.
Elementary Principal Katie Hoekman gave her report, stating that she and Middle School/High School Principal Chris McGregor attended the South Dakota Principals and Associated School Board events last week and said they were productive. She told the board that they were gearing up for the start of the year.
“This week, we have our kindergarten one-on-one meetings,” Hoekman said. “Students in kindergarten get to come in and meet their teacher. Teachers get to do a little assessment on them and stuff, and kids get to see their classrooms, and parents fill out some forms and things for us as well.”
“August 20th, we have Open House with elementary. We're going to do something a little bit different this year,” Hoekman said. “I know, in the newsletter it said that we're just going to do a six o'clock time, but we're going to offer two times. I said that to parents today, six o'clock and a seven o'clock times. And we're going to, one, want to talk with parents about our SOAR initiative this year, which stands for Safe, Optimistic, Accountable, and Respectful. Mr. Steckler is going to be there as well, and talking about expectations at activities too. So just maybe about 10 minutes is all we're asking for parents to commit to. But I like to be able to talk with parents as well before they go to their classrooms. We have first day of school on August 22nd and then first day of preschool is August 26th.”
Hoekman is also in charge of curriculum updates and she had plenty to report about this as well.
“As far as curriculum updates, like I said, we went to a curriculum directors meeting there at the conference last week. We'll have the DOE meetings on zoom this year as well, and then other curriculum director meetings throughout the year.”
“On Thursday this week, middle school, high school staff are coming in, and we're going to go through a six-hour training with the new curriculum that they have received for this school year, and looking at that and preparing them for that. And then this year, Social Studies will be our big review this year. So just letting you all know, because next year, is the year the new standards have to be implemented. We have received enough books that have all the K 12 standards in them, so going to utilize that in our review so we can see what standards have we been teaching and what standards do we now need to be teaching and which ones overlap. We did have three teachers attend the South Dakota civics and history summit that was this past summer, so we’ll be utilizing that knowledge. And they actually got a stipend for going to that. So hopefully those teachers will be key in developing what curriculum we're looking at for next year.”
Chris McGregor had little to add to the principals’ report, save that he was able to attend the National Principal’s Association convention in Tennessee this year, and that it was both very uplifting personally and professionally satisfying, with good ideas and practices he’ll be applying to make him better at his job.
With nothing else on the agenda, the board adjourned. The next regular meeting of the Garretson School Board will be held on Monday, September 9 at 6:00 p.m. in the Garretson School Library.
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