The Crookston School Board met on Monday evening in the Crookston High School Choice/Orchestra room.
2023-24 AUDIT
The meeting started with Brian Opsahl of Brady Martz and Associates presenting a draft of the audit for 2023-24. Opsahl said it was a clean audit, but he suggested keeping a close eye on some things. “I did point out that the general fund went down about $1.9 million dollars compared to the previous year, and a lot of that was related to capital outlay expenditures for some ongoing projects,” said Opsahl. “The general fund balance came in at 7.9% of the expenditures, or the unassigned balance did. The fund balance policy for the district is 10% so it is something to keep an eye on.”
The board agreed to move approval of the audit to the December 9 meeting because they received the draft a few minutes before the meeting.
JOHNSON CONTROLS CONTRACT
The school board approved a three-year contract extension with Johnson Controls for $68,830 each year. “They come in and fix our heating system and filters and all that stuff,” said Superintendent Randy Bergquist. “We were able to get the contract without raising it three to five percent each year. I suppose they thought we were a good customer and I am pretty excited about that because any way we can save the district money by extending something we need anyway for our students, our staff, and community members is something I want to go forward with.”
AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION COMPLIANCE LETTER
The board unanimously approved the American Indian Education compliance letter, which is a new requirement by the State of Minnesota. Crookston School District American Indian (Native American) Liaison Dave Emanuel, who is in his ninth year in the position, said the Crookston School is doing great, especially when compared to the rest of the state. The Crookston School District has an American Indian Parent Advisory Committee (AIPAC), which tells the board if Emanuel is doing a good job or not. “I was here today for a letter of concurrence or nonconcurrence. The AIPAC said that they agree with what I am doing with the program. It is a powerful tool for the committee to give a yes or no,” said Emanuel. “There are several rule changes by statute, and number one is if you have 10 or more Native American students, you have to have a committee. If there are more than 100 Native American students in your school district, you need an education coordinator to ensure the kids are moving towards graduation.”
Emanuel said people are surprised to find out how many Native American students are in the Crookston School District. “It is kind of shocking. We have roughly 150 students, with 60 over at Highland School, and that isn’t counting the kids at Washington School,” said Emanuel, who added there is another change coming. “In the legislature, they said the native language was being forgotten. It was something the schools basically cared much about, so they made a rule change, and you must offer it now. Bobbi Jo Hebert will get the training and work with the younger kids, and then we will have an online option for the juniors and seniors next year.”
PSEO CREDIT CHANGE
The school board also approved a change to Post Secondary Education Option (PSEO) credits in the Crookston High School yearbook. “The change is for students withdrawing from a PSEO class in the middle of the semester after the drop date that the University gives will result in an F on their high school transcript,” said Crookston High School Principal Matt Torgerson. “The reality is that we are trying to hold the students accountable. We give them plenty of warnings of being a college student versus a high school student and the choices they make could doing PSEO could affect their high school. It isn’t meant to mess up anybody’s situation or their academics, it is really meant to hold the students accountable for the high level of rigor they signed up for.”
The change will start in the spring semester.
CONSENT AGENDA/MISC.
The board approved the consent agenda, which included the resignation of special ed teacher Meghan Jeffries and Highland School teacher Amanda Wolf. They will be doing an interview for the special education teacher position on Monday. They will also interview three candidates for the Assistant Technology Director position on Tuesday.
Several school board members wanted to mention that they chip in $30,000 a year towards the Crookston Community Pool and will do so until 2027 even though they no longer have a swim team and don’t use it for physical education classes. They brought it up after disparaging comments from Crookston City Council members. They also pointed out that they paid $122,000 to the city for the Crookston Sports Center this year, and they put $250,000 into the pool the year the City wanted to take over ownership from the school district.
Crystal Meine of the AIPAC and Dave Emanuel speak to the board
Brian Opsahl of Brady Martz and Associates gives the draft of the 2023-24 audit
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