The Crookston School Board met on Monday evening and heard from Crookston High School teacher, Travis Oliver, who thanked the board for giving him a half-year contract. He will only teach the first semester because he will be student teaching the Ag Education class in Fertile to complete is schooling to obtain his teaching licensure. Oliver became a teacher as a community expert and had been working on his teaching licensure ever since. Olive told the board that he will be working on the construction trades class in the first semester with the kids and contractors will finish up whatever they don’t get to. The house is being built on Hoven Lane and concrete is already poured and Oliver said they should be able to hit the ground running on the first week of school. He thanked the board for allowing him to have a half-year contract and the board thanked him for his hard work and wished him good luck this school year.
The board approved the resignations of Robbie Nessler as the Junior Varsity Boys Basketball coach and Nancy Asman as a Title aide and Educational assistant at Washington School. The board approved lane advancement requests and employment of Serena Stoeck as School Age Care at Washington School and Carol Picard as School Age Care at Highland School.
The board set the Truth-in-Taxation hearing and World’s Best Workforce Hearing dates for December 10, 2018. The Truth-in-Taxation hearing will start at 6:00 p.m. with the World’s Best Workforce hearing to follow. The only Crookston School Board meeting scheduled for December will start after the hearings on December 10.
The board gave approval of a Bremer Line of Credit up to $2 million. “The overall drive behind that was fiscal,” said Superintendent Jeremy Olson. “We want to minimize our fees and maximize our revenue, which is obviously what we all want to do. That was the drive behind the line of credit, it allowed us to position the district so we can minimize fees and maximize credit.”
The board gave approval of the Minnesota School Board Association’s recommended changes in the 20 different policies. “Most of the policy changes were because of ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, which follows the No Child Left Behind,” said Olson. “There was some minor changes informing parents on how students receive credits at the high school level so the policy changes are reflecting those law changes.”
Substitute teacher rates will stay the same for the 2018-19 school year as recommended by Superintendent Jeremy Olson. School Board Chair Frank Fee said East Grand Forks pays $135 for a full day, while Crookston pays $120, Thief River Falls and Win-E-Mac pay $105 while Climax and Fisher never responded to the Crookston request. “When we did the survey we found that we are in pretty good position for substitutes to make sure we are keeping up with the Jones’ and making sure we are offering a good rate for our subs,” said Olson. Crookston will also pay a half-day sub $60 and less than half a day sub $40.
The board accepted a $2,500 donation from the Crookston Junior Olympic Volleyball program to be used towards the Pirate Volleyball program.
The meeting wrapped up with Superintendent Olson and the board discussing the metrics for measuring how the board evaluates the superintendent. Board member Kari Miller wanted to have quarterly check-ins between Olson and each board member and she also suggested that for Olson’s protection that he doesn’t say how many events he attends and maybe change the wording to make events as time allows. “The idea behind a rubric for our evaluation system is basically to make sure that we have a uniform way of evaluating a superintendent, what meets standards and what doesn’t meet standards,” said Olson. “We got some feedback, which is what I was hoping for and I will go back and adjust the rubric.”
The next regular meeting is scheduled for Monday, September 10 at 5:00 p.m.
