Crookston Public Schools Superintendent Jeremy Olson proposed several changes last week including a couple of staffing changes to help keep the district within the means of their budget. After hearing some feedback, Olson clarified two of the staffing proposals. “I wanted to clarify what our proposal is and what it’s not,” said Olson. “So the proposal for the music position, for instance, is to go from four to three music people and not reduce any programs other than sixth-grade general music. Students start specializing in fourth grade for orchestra and in fifth grade for band and choir. From the standpoint of music continuity, it would be really unchanged.”
The other proposal Olson wanted to clarify was that Highland would still have two admins in their office throughout the day, the proposal is to change the scheduling allowing for one fewer staff member. “The other one I’ve been hearing about is the second administrative position at Highland,” said Olson. “Again, a second person would be there we’d just be reconfiguring what that looks like with bringing someone over from ALC and someone over from Washington to fill that position trying to be more efficient in our scheduling and do more with less while holding student services unharmed. Those efficiencies allow us to save money next year without drastically reducing programs or budgets.”
The district interviewed two architecture candidates this week and plans to bring a recommendation for whom to hire to the School Board meeting Monday. “[Tuesday] night the School Board interviewed YHR Partners out of Moorhead and ICON out of Grand Forks for architect services,” said Olson. “I was directed to contact four references for each and once the information comes back to make some calls and enter into conversations with these firms and try to bring a recommendation to the Monday board meeting.”
The policy committee also met this week focusing on updating policies that were affected by changes in state statute. “There have been a lot of changes in statute,” said Olson. “Our MSBA policy review was to review the policies and how the statutes affect our policies. We’ll then update them corresponding with the current statutes.’
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