By Ruth Fennema –

At the January board meeting the decision was made to change the date of the monthly meeting to the fourth Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m.  Due to the impending snowstorm the decision was made to meet on Tuesday the 21st instead. There were two board members present in person at the meeting and four members and Dawn Sandbulte were present via cell phone conference call.

Superintendent Keith Buckridge approached the board with a proposal to add an additional five E-Learning days for the year. Due to state regulations only allowing five days of E-Learning per year and the status of blizzard conditions, the school used all the remaining E-Learning days last week. The board can approve additional E-Learning days in conjunction with the total number of school days required by the state. Five additional E-Learning days were approved. 

Due to the meeting date change, another issue arose regarding some of the regular monthly and contract payments being delayed. Buckridge suggested that the staff be allowed to pay normal monthly bills and contract accounts prior to board meetings. Any additional bills or invoices will be paid after the monthly board meeting. The board acknowledged that this change was valid and approved payments up to $5,000.

Mr. Buckridge showed the board the Achievement and Integration budget.  The program for math achievement is a shared program with Pipestone School with a contracted teacher, Jamie Fenicle.  Fenicle helps Kaitlyn Schelhaas with lesson plans and tests for improving math comprehension.  The proposed change that he suggested is cutting the time with the contracted teacher from Pipestone from 40 to 31 days per year.  The board approved this change.