The Crookston School Board met on Monday evening in the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room.
MULTI-USE ATHLETIC COMPLEX
The meeting started with good news from Shelby McQuay of Ehlers Public Finance Advisors. The $4,965,000 in general obligation school building bonds had nine bids, with a low bid of 3.4262 percent from Fifth Third Securities Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio. The estimated bond premium is $513,727, and the net available for the project will be $5,224,847. “During the election, we had estimated 4.7 percent interest, and it came in at 3.42 percent, so it came in at the tax impact,” said McQuay. “It will give the district a little more money for the construction fund through the premium bids the district received, so good news overall.”
At the end of the meeting, Superintendent Dave Kuehn gave an update on the multi-use complex bidding process. He said they have had great news with the bids they have accepted so far. He said the district has received the bids for the turf, press box, bleachers, and track, and they have come in on budget or a little lower through state bids. The bids for the dirt work will go out Monday, May 8, and several local contractors have received the bid information.
SUPERINTENDENT’S LETTER TO THE DISTRICT RESIDENTS
Good Evening,
The District’s highest priority is to ensure a safe and welcoming learning environment for all of our students at all of our school buildings. Recent events in our schools indicate that students are struggling socially and emotionally, leading to many concerns about student behavior in our school community. We share concerns about student behaviors and the overall safety of our schools with our families and staff.
We are committed to supporting each and every student by creating a sense of belonging in our school community. Students who misbehave or jeopardize the safety of our schools will be and have been issued disciplinary consequences as outlined in our policies. In today’s society, handling personal conflicts and/or resolving issues seems to frequently resort to a verbal and/or a physical means of dealing with the conflict, hampering the ability for appropriate relationships amongst students. Social media and cell phones are also strong barriers for resolving conflicts in an appropriate, respectful way.
Last Thursday, we had a behavior incident at our 7-12 building before the start of our school day. There were less than 10 students involved in this incident, which included physical altercations and verbal altercations.
This incident lasted about 20 seconds – there were no injuries, limited physical contact, and no weapons involved. ALL students involved in the altercation were disciplined based on school district policy, as well as ALL students received citations for violations of the law from the school district’s resource officer, who is an employee of the Crookston Police Department. There was a parent of one of the students involved in the altercation who came into the high school office and created a verbal disturbance – she was dealt with appropriately, receiving consequences from both the school district and law enforcement.
To this date (150 days into our school year), we have had 12 physical altercations take place in our 7-12 building, which is 12 too many.
Approximately 18 students have been involved in these 12 altercations, which is about 3% of our 7-12 student population. In each of these incidents/altercations, student discipline has taken place based on our district policy and the 7-12 student handbook, as well as legal citations/consequences have been administered by our school resource officer. Based on student data privacy laws, we as a school district are not allowed to share details of the discipline and/or legal consequences that were delivered.
I will end by saying that we are working hard on addressing behavior issues at our 7-12 building, and we still have A LOT of work to do on this front. The priority of keeping students safe and providing a welcoming environment for all of our students also goes with our responsibility to provide an equitable education to all of our students and also the responsibility that we are helping students and not giving up on them. We want all of our students to be successful learners and to become productive citizens.
We will be seeking family and community engagement to determine the next steps for the Crookston Public Schools as we focus on safety and continuous improvement. Together, we believe that we can make the Crookston Public Schools the best place for students to learn and grow.
OPEN FORUM –
Two Crookston School District residents spoke during the public forum portion of the meeting. The first speaker was Adam Schiller, and he was concerned about the fight at the school last week and asked if the school was looking at adding metal detectors or adding more security because this fight was fists and words, but next time it could be a gun. The board thanked him for his thoughts.
The second speaker was Cole Perry, and he had two bathroom-related concerns. The first was vaping in the bathroom, and said they need to do something about it because his daughter is scared to go in the girls bathroom because of all the vaping. The second concern was that his daughter was in the girls bathroom, and “a guy that thinks he is a girl” goes into the girls bathroom. Perry’s daughter is scared to use the bathroom when a boy is coming in and asked if there are any private bathrooms in the high school. The school board and Superintendent Dave Kuehn thanked him for his concerns and said they will be in touch with him to discuss the issue.
INCLUSIVE PLAYGROUNDS
There were two feature programs in the meeting. The first program was Caitlyn Michno Lance Norman and Maddie Englestad of RiverView Health giving a presentation on inclusive playgrounds. Michno said the Crookston School District has over 1,100 students, and 324 are IEP students, which means they have some sort of special need. “We had a project proposal to have an Inclusive Playground at Highland Elementary. We approached Principal Chris Trostad earlier this year trying to bring this type of playground to Highland School and he said they were looking at replacing their current playground,” said Michno. “This would be something to allow all of the kids in our community to have an equal opportunity to play.”
The estimated cost is $500,000 to $600,000, and Highland Principal Trostad said there are several grants out there to help with the project. “If we get approval, we will start fundraising soon,” said Michno. “We will be looking for a lot of volunteers and donation opportunities, and any involvement we can get from the community of Crookston would be great.”
ALLUMA IN THE CROOKSTON SCHOOL DISTRICT
The second program was Shauna Reitmeier and Amy Bartz of Alluma on mental health support in the Crookston Public Schools. Alluma has a total of seven employees in the three schools in the district. Three at the high school, three employees at Highland School, and a part-time employee at Washington School. Alluma has the following number of students that are clients at each school – 93 at the high school, 98 at Highland School, and 24 at Washington School. “We talked about the risk factors around mental health, the protective factors, and the long-standing relationship we have had with the school district. We have been in the district for about 15 years, and Amy shared the staff that we have co-located in the district,” said Reitmeier. “We also talked about opportunities to try to solve some of the issues that are not a one-person solution.”
The seven employees that work with the school district have a combined salary of $428,690, with the school district paying Aluma $60,000. “There is seven staff, but 6.1 full-time equivalents in the district, and one of our strengths is maximizing all the funding opportunities to serve as many kids, and we want continue to provide that.”
READING TRAINING PURCHASE
The board approved to purchase of LETRS Training from Lexia. The 140-hour training is for teachers and staff over a two-year span to help with teaching reading. Washington School Principal Denice Oliver said the districts that have used the LETRS training have shown big jumps in reading scores.
SCHOOL CALENDAR CHANGE
The board approved a change to the school calendar. With the sixth snow day of the school year, it surpassed the five storm days built in, and that won’t affect the students as they will still have the last day of school on Thursday, June 1. Teachers and staff will have a staff development day on June 2 and will have the option to have a staff development day on June 3 or 5 to make up the sixth snow day.
SCHOOL BUS STOP ARM GRANT
The Crookston School District received a $38,000 grant to purchase school bus stop arm cameras. “It will provide a camera that is front-mounted on the front mirror and on the back of the bus,” said Kuehn. “A camera will record anybody that drives by when the stop arm is out on a bus, and the camera will pick up the license plate of the car.”
CONSENT AGENDA
The Consent Agenda includes the approval of bills in the amount of $339,573.25. It includes the resignation letter from Anna Ogaard-Brekken as Food Services Director and the retirement of Payroll/Financial Services Director Nancy Nottestad after almost 40 years of working in the district.
The board will be asked to approve the employment of Adrianne Winger as the K-12 music teacher. The board will be asked to accept several donations including $720 from the City of Crookston for the Girl’s Hockey program, $500 from the Farmer’s Elevator Company of Eldred for the FFA program, $2,200 from the Crookston Baseball Association to the High School baseball program, $2,100 from the United Way for student transportation, $3,000 from the Northwest Minnesota Arts Council for Highland School, $800 from the Pirate Fine Arts Boosters for the Speech program, $842 from Andy and Lisa Coauette to Pirate Athletics, and $842 from Brian and Melissa Boll to Pirate Athletics.
The board will also accept a $2,500 grant from the United Way of Crookston for the Eat United Program and $1,000 from the Crookston United Way for the P.A.T.C.H program.
