The Crookston School Board met on Monday evening in the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room and the main item from the meeting was the approval to transfer ownership of the Crookston Community Pool to the city of Crookston.
The board unanimously approved transferring ownership of the pool to the city and the lease for the pool and the Crookston Sports Center (CSC). The Crookston School District would give the City money from the pool referendum (in the ballpark of $200,000) and $30,000 per year for eight-year agreement. The school will give the City another $17,000 after they found out a couple of weeks ago that the pool levy is bringing in less money becuase of lower enrollment. “We are taking the $30,000 from our lease levy,” said Crookston Schools Superintendent Jeremy Olson. “It is a per student levy that we can take out for rental facilities and two or three weeks ago we found out some adjustments that were going to impact the pool negatively and the school board agreed to absorb about $17,000.” The lease of the Crookston Sports Center will be $112,000 for the next three years and starting the fourth year the increase in lease payment will be tied directly to what the state funding is to the school district. If the state gives the Crookston School District an increase of five percent, the CSC lease will increase by five percent.
The City of Crookston will vote on the transfer at their next meeting and the official transfer date would be July 1, 2019. School Board member Dave Davidson said this was an important step forward and it assures the city has a recreational facility. Davidson added that this has been a long time coming and appreaciates the efforts of everybody involved. School Board member Patty Dillabough asked if Pool Manager Cody Brekken would keep his job in the transfer and she was assured the city has already agreed he would stay on as Pool manager.
The board approved the audit, which was accurate, but it showed the district was running some deficit spending. “We did some deficit spending, about $30,000 so our budget is in a little bit of red and for all the things that happened and our staff doing a great job, it wasn’t terrible, but obviously not where we want to be,” said Superintendent Olson. “We have already taken some steps to rectify and there are some ineficiencies that we have taken care of with staff and other budget items and right now I think we are where we need to be right now.”
The board accepted the resignation of Serena Stoeck, School Age Care at Washington; Terry Stout a custodian at Crookston High School and Michelle Erdman as an assistant girls soccer coach.
The board accepted the employment of Lon Boike as halftime seventh grade girls basketball coach in a 4-2 vote. Board members Frank Fee, Dave Davidson, Adrianne Winger, and Tim Dufault voted yes while Patty Dillabough and Kari Miller voted no. Miller said she doesn’t believe this action is in the best interest of the students.
Superintendent Olson said they are woking on preschool configuration and will continue to work on shaping preschool for the future. He also said they are going to be working on a strategic plan for the school district and will include staff, the public and others to shape a plan for the future. “We will have a discussion and see where we want to be in five years as a school district,” said Olson. “We will start taking some actionable steps on how we are going to get there and we will be asking for community input and will ask the school board to work on that intensely and we will have to be articulate on what kind of school we want to be and what actions and steps do we have to take to get there.”
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