The Crookston School Board met on Monday evening at the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room and approved the purchase of a new phone system for the district, the general obligation building bonds, and more.
GENERAL OBLIGATION BUILDING BONDS
The board heard from Jeff Seeley, Senior Municipal Advisor at Ehlers. Seeley talked about the $4,965,000 in General Obligation School Building bonds the district was going to issue. The Crookston School District currently has a Moody’s credit rating of A1, and they will work with the State Credit Enhancement and also use their AA1 rating. “The board approved the resolution of the sale of the bonds and to enroll into the state credit enhancement program,” said Seeley. “Rates have gone up in the last six months, but right now, we are seeing favorable bids. Historically, they are still low, and bids for school building bonds and municipal bonds have been very strong.”
Ehlers will receive and evaluate bids on April 24 and bring them to the school board meeting later that day. “It is a national competitive bid process,” said Seeley. “We will bring the results to the board, and they will approve it, and about three weeks later (May 18) we will transfer the funds, and they will be able to move ahead with the construction project.”
PHONE SYSTEM PURCHASE
The board approved the purchase of a new phone system for the district. The district received three bids, with the lowest bid coming from Tech Check out of Sartell, the current network provider. The cost will be $77,613 and will move the district from using old copper lines to digital ethernet lines. “It is somewhat preventative because our current system is over 13 years old, and we have a unique thing where I received extra funds through COVID packages that came through that I didn’t spend all of my capital budget and was able to take that money and purchase the majority of what we will be doing,” said Crookston School District Technology Director Kevin Weber. “I didn’t have to go before the board to ask for a big chunk of money. It will replace our old copper-based system and with a new digital ethernet system, and there will be a lot of enhancements, and the teachers will see a vast improvement in the quality of the phone lines and the ability to do more with the phone than they have in the past.”
Weber estimates the new system will save the district anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 a year. “When you compare the annual cost now to what we will be doing in the future, and $10,000 to $15,000 is not an unrealistic savings. I am being kind of conservative compared to the company’s estimate.”
NON-RENEWAL OF FOUR TEACHERS
The board approved the non-renewal of four teachers, third-grade teacher Jaclyn Hubbard, special ed teacher Ashley Nirschl, Kindergarten teacher Adrianne Winger, and second-grade teacher Amanda Wolf. “Those are things you don’t want on your board agenda, but they are necessary in most school districts,” said Superintendent Dave Kuehn. “We have worked with the four teachers and had conversations with them, but it is still hard. We hope through some state funding and down the road, maybe something will open up in the spring. It had to do with enrollment and rightsizing our staff, and another one was COVID funding related. The elementary needs are a little less next year, and all four are great people and we wish them the best, and hopefully, something can open up in May.”
MOVING TWO TEACHERS FROM HALF-TIME TO FULL-TIME
Two Crookston High School grads have been moved from half-time teachers to full-time teachers next school year. Ben Parkin was approved for full-time employment as a physical education instructor at Highland School, and Autumn Hanson was approved as a full-time art instructor at Crookston Middle School.
OTHER NEWS –
The board approved the current bills in the amount of $167,878.19 and the prior meeting minutes from February 23 and 27.
The next regular school board meeting will be held on Monday, April 24 at 5:00 p.m. at the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room. The next school board meeting will take place on Tuesday when they interview five candidates for superintendent beginning at 12:30 p.m.
