The Crookston School Board had a lengthy meeting on Monday night in the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room.
FOOTBALL/SOCCER/TRACK REFERENDUM
The board unanimously approved the $3.8 million turf football/soccer field with an eight-lane track facility with a referendum to pay for the facility on August 9, 2022. The referendum will be a 12-year bond that will cost a homeowner with a $200,000 house about $3 per month, and farmers could get up to 70 percent in subsidy. “We are looking at doing a multi-use facility to use football, soccer, baseball, softball, track, and so forth,” said Superintendent Jeremy Olson. “Turf gives you a lot of advantages from a weather standpoint over grass is why we are looking at it, and we also explored doing this at UMC. We offered to purchase the facility, but we worked for several months to secure the purchase, but it didn’t work out.”
The school district wanted to buy the property because to use Long-Term Funds, you have to own the facility. “By having a multi-purpose facility on our property that gives us the flexibility to use dollars to upgrade the facility without going back to the taxpayers,” said Superintendent Jeremy Olson. “If you don’t get tired of hearing from me the next few months, I’m not doing my job.”
LIGHTS AT THE HIGH SCHOOL TENNIS COURTS
The school board unanimously approved spending $48,700 to put lights up to cover two of the eight tennis courts at the Crookston High School. Earlier this season, a tennis match was called due to darkness, and it is also a popular place for the community to play tennis. The lowest bid came from RBB Electric of Crookston. The school board committed $31,000 to help put new lights up at the baseball field, and that project fell through after the City of Crookston didn’t have the money to do the project. So the school will take the $31,000 they set aside, and the Crookston Pirate Boosters will fund the rest to get lights over two of the courts. “We are looking at the quality of our facilities, and one of the items that have been identified by Activities Director Greg Garmen is the ability to play after it is dark,” said Superintendent Olson. ” We don’t need to light the entire facility, so we will light two courts and are looking to do it on the southern end of the courts. I think it will be a great addition to the facility.”
VOTING LOCATION FOR ELECTION NOT ON STATEWIDE ELECTION
The board unanimously approved St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Crookston as the polling place for any special election not held on a statewide election day. The time would be from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and mail-in ballots would be accepted.
GOOD AUDIT REPORT FROM BRADY MARTZ
Tracy Bruggeman of Brady Martz and Associates told the Crookston School Board that they had a good audit. “We are structurally balanced, and that is where we want to be and want to stay,” said Superintendent Olson. “This audit reflects the hard work of many people throughout the district.”
APPROVAL OF COVID LANGUAGE INTO PAYROLL PROCEDURES
The wording will allow a staff member that is fully vaccinated and has a workplace COVID exposure, and has a breakthrough case, they would get up to an extra 10 days of sick leave.
“The reason we are doing that is for the protection of our staff,” said Superintendent Olson. “We believe we own some responsibility if they get it at work, and we want to take care of our employees that have done everything they could do.”
MASKING WORKING ON LIMITING LEARNING DISRUPTION
The masking for K-6th grade has been keeping kids in school. Two weeks prior to the masking requirement, there were 35 learning disruptions (close contact quarantines), and since the masking has been put in place, there has only been one learning disruption. “It is obviously keeping our kids in school, and we understand it is not the most popular thing,” said Superintendent Olson. “We are seeing the COVID numbers in the county going down, and we will be looking at the numbers again on Friday, and we will make a determination if we continue to go with what we are doing or changing a level. That will be up to the board to make.”
CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS –
The board unanimously approved the consent agenda with current bills payable in the amount of $212,930.21. The board approved the employment of Kabie Weisert as Instructional Assistant at Highland Elementary School, Markarita Bixby as Kitchen Helper at Crookston High School, Alexis Durden as Paraprofessional at Crookston High School, Kendall McLeod as Paraprofessional at Highland Elementary School, Jessica Holzer as District Office Support Staff at the District Office, Scott Mustain as a Paraprofessional at Highland Elementary School, Tracy Buker as School Nurse Assistant for the District.
The board approved the Winter Coaching list. The board accepted a resignation letter from Jamie Kresl as Junior High Girls’ Basketball Coach and approval of leave of absence requests for Allison Ozaki as Special Education Instructor at Crookston High School and Emily Fonteyn as Interventionist at Crookston High School.
NEXT MEETING –
The next Crookston School Board meeting will be Monday, November 22, at 5:00 p.m. in the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room.
