The Crookston School Board met in the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room on Monday evening and approved the preliminary tax levy, student fundraising, and heard from Crookston High School Principal about a partnership with Polk County Public Health to inform students of the dangers of vaping.
The first topic of the meeting was the approval of the bills and the preliminary Property Tax Levy at 5.2%, which is the state max. Last year the Crookston School District decreased their levy by 4% for the 2018 fiscal year and they set the preliminary levy for 2019 at the max to have a little wiggle room when making decisions. Crookston Schools Superintendent Jeremy Olson said most of the schools, around 95% set the preliminary levy at the max to give maximum flexibility and Crookston is following suit. “The reason we do that is that serves as the cap for the December levy, which is traditional to what we have done every year,” said Olson. “Basically, that gives us the most flexibility moving forward as the levy is adjusted because from this position on, we will get about 100 renditions of the levy from the state of Minnesota.” The actual levy could be changed to a lower number when they officially set the levy in December.
Olson said the main reason the levy was down 4% last year is due to integration funding the district was receiving for the first time. Olson also added that 30% of the Crookston School District funding comes from the local tax levy while 70% comes from the state.
The second item of discussion was during the personnel items. The board approved the hiring of Melanie Wahl as a Learning Readiness Instructor at Washington School. The board also approved the contract with Crookston High School Guidance Counselor Ray Latovsky and Crookston Activities Director/Dean of Students Greg Garmen. The board also approved a teacher contract with Josh Hardy as a Phy Ed instructor at Crookston High School. “Josh’s job has changed a bit from last year as he will no longer be the Dean of Students and transparency standpoint we wanted to showcase that to the school board,” said Olson. “The reason we do those two contracts separately is because they have additional days for the counselor and for Greg as the Dean of Students/Activities Director.”
The board approved the 2018-19 student fundraising requests. The board approved the requests and some of the new requests were from the Junior Class prom, LEO Club and 50/50 raffles during sporting events. Crookston School Board member Dave Davidson asked if this was the only time fundraising requests can be approved and Superintendent Olson said they can approve them anytime, but they try to have staff turn in all fundraising requests at once, so the board doesn’t have to approve requests at every meeting.
The last part of the meeting were reports from the school principals and superintendent. Crookston High School Principal Eric Bubna said they are going to have Polk County Public Health come into the school to discuss vaping with the kids to inform and educate them on vaping and the dangers and unknowns of vaping. “We want to make sure our students are informed as to what is it they are doing, what the risks are and there is a lot of misconceptions out there about vaping,” said Bubna. “I felt we need to address this with the students and a lot of times it is nice to have another adult that they’re not used to seeing and an expert in their area so the kids don’t feel like it is their teacher ragging on them so I gave Polk County Public Health a call and Sarah Reese was great to work with and she said she could get a couple staff and they have helped us come up with a curriculum to deliver to the kids in their classroom.” Bubna added that a note will be going home to the parents to inform them of what they are doing and talking about and one big misconception about vaping is the kids think it is harmless. “A lot of kids think it is just water vapor and that’s just not accurate. Almost 100 percent of them have nicotine in them and the amount of nicotine in them is really, really high and the flavors are popular, and all those flavors come from chemicals,” said Bubna. “One thing we know is the nicotine is extremely harmful to you and I can’t tell you the exact amount, but one of the vapes has a pack full of nicotine in it. I am not naïve enough to think we do this, and it will all go away, but I think we do our due diligence so these kids know what they are doing, because they don’t.”
Olson said it has been a great start to the school year and they are looking to see if the Alternative Learning Center can be reimagined to make it more effective.
The School Board will have a long-term planning committee meeting on Wednesday at 7:30 a.m. The board will also have a negotiations meeting with the paraprofessionals on Monday, October 1 and the next regular school board meeting will be Monday, October 8.
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