February 13, 2023 at 5:30 PM - Regular Board Meeting_AMENDED (Executive Session to follow)

Background:  The following personnel are presented for the board’s consideration:

New Hire (Support Staff): Terri Barry, special services paraprofessional, Atall Elementary, $19.60/hr. eff. 1/4/2023; Harleigh Stange, paraprofessional, Piedmont Valley Elementary, $15.00/hr. eff. 1/25/2023; Wendell Rednour-Yeary, custodian, Sturgis Brown High School, $15.00/hr. eff., 1/23/2023; Maxen Evens, part-time custodian, Sturgis Brown High School, $14.00/hr. eff. 1/23/2023; Natalie Hill, special services paraprofessional, Piedmont Valley Elementary, $16.00/hr. eff. 2/1/2023.

Change in Hourly Rate (Support Staff): Lori Cleland, food service, Sturgis Brown High School, level I pay increase from $15.00/hr to $15.20/hr. eff. 1/12/2023.

Contract Amendment (Certificated): Amy Conover, special services teacher with additional school psychologist duties, district-wide, $2,500.00, eff. 2/1/2023.

Change of Assignment (Support Staff): Jennifer Whitman, paraprofessional, Piedmont Valley Elementary, $14.00/hr to administrative assistant, Stagebarn Middle School, $15.00/hr. eff. 1/16/2023; Rachel Palmer, administrative assistant, Stagebarn Middle School, $15.35/hr. to head administrative assistant, $16.35/hr. eff. 1/16/2023.

Change of Assignment (Extracurricular): Dan Skinner, assistant track coach to head track coach, Sturgis Williams Middle School, $2,383.00, eff. for the 2022-23 school year.

Resignation (Certificated): Marysa Podoll, teacher, Central Meade Co. School, eff. end of the 2022-23 school year; Krystina Bower, teacher, Stagebarn Middle School, eff. end of the 2022-23 school year; Heather Tullis, teacher, Sturgis Elementary, eff. end of the 2022-23 school year; Marci Farmer, teacher, Rural Schools, eff. end of the 2022-23 school year; Dan McIntire, counselor, Stagebarn Middle School/Piedmont Valley Elementary, eff. end of the 2022-23 school year; Krystal Weber, teacher, Sturgis Williams Middle School, eff. end of the 2022-23 school year.

Retirement (Administrative): Deb Wilburn, assistant special services director, district-wide, eff. end of the 2022-23 school year.

Retirement (Support Staff): Cora Atkinson, after-school program paraprofessional, Piedmont Valley Elementary, eff. end of the 2022-23 school year.

Resignation (Support Staff): Melissa Caldwelll, special services paraprofessional, Sturgis Elementary, eff. 1/18/2023; Ariel Nelson, cafeteria monitor, Piedmont Valley Elementary, eff. 2/6/2023; Rylin Ludwick, special services paraprofessional, Piedmont Valley Elementary, eff. 2/24/2023.

Resignation (Extracurricular): Paul Smith, assistant boys soccer coach, Sturgis Brown High School, eff., end of the 2022-23 school year; Krystina Bower, assistant volleyball coach and head basketball coach, Stagebarn Middle School, eff,. end of the 2022-23 school year; Scottie Bruch, head cross-country coach, Sturgis Williams Middle School, eff. end of the 2022-23 school year; Scottie Bruch, head track coach, Sturgis Williams Middle School, eff. 2/1/2023; Karlee Gibbins, competitive dance coach, Sturgis Brown High School, eff. 2/9/2023.

Background:  Community members who have volunteered to work in schools throughout the district: Teresa Bartlett, assistant drama coach.

Background:  Board members and school administrators/officials need to request a conflict of interest waiver before participating in or voting upon a decision concerning an application in which that member has a direct personal or financial interest.  

Background:  Open Forum is an opportunity for patrons to share their thoughts and concerns.  The school board will listen, but no discussion takes place and there will not be board action.  Board members may ask clarifying questions. The protocol established for open forum is to provide a time limit of three minutes to share concerns.  If a patron would like to have a two-way discussion, they are encouraged to schedule a meeting with the superintendent. 

Background:  The Character Education trait for the month of February is "Courtesy," which includes graciousness, politeness, consideration, and good manners.

Background:  Stagebarn Middle School 8th grade Science teacher, Grace Steinley, was awarded the VFW National Citizenship Education Teacher Award for 2022-23 at the capitol in Pierre on February 6. The VFW Teacher of the Year award contest recognizes three exceptional teachers for their outstanding commitment to teaching Americanism and patriotism to their students.

  

Background:  Sturgis Brown High School has three Presidential Scholars nominees. Beck Bruch, Owen Cass and Carlie Johnson have been named one of more than 5,000 candidates in the 2023 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program. The candidates were selected from nearly 3.6 million students expected to graduate from U.S. high schools in the year 2023. The scores associated with their ACT or SAT scores are used to select candidates from each state with the top 20 male examinees and top 20 female examinees being selected as candidates.The US Department of Education will announce the Scholars in May. Good luck to our three Scholars!

 

Background:  Congratulations to the Sturgis Brown HS Speech and Debate team for earning first place in the 3A division of the Thunder Basin Speech and Debate tournament. Sturgis Public Forum teams of Lilly Heisinger and Cecilia Shyne and Abby Johnson and Bono Buchtel closed out as co-champions. Marty Jones won the Lincoln Douglas Debate championship, Codi Rounds finished first in Drama, and Jag Weyer won informative speaking.

Background:  Sturgis Williams Middle School After-School Program received a donation in the amount of $250.00 from Sturgis Rally Charities, Inc. The money will be used to purchase snacks for students.

Background:  The Meade School District will join districts across the state to thank school board members for their leadership and service to our school district and community during South Dakota School Board Recognition Week from February 20 - Feb 24, 2023. During School Board Recognition Week, the Meade School District invites students, staff, and community members to take part in thanking its school board members.

All school board members from districts in the region and enrollment category are eligible to run for the open Board of Director’s seat. Eligible board members interested in running for an open seat must complete the Announcement of Candidacy form and return it to ASBSD by Friday, February 17.

Meade School District 46-1 School Board Members:
L to R (front): Justin Jutting, Joseph Urbaniak, Sandy Cass, Holly Good and Aaron Odegaard
L to R (back) Terry Koontz, Charlie Wheeler (president), Lee Spring (vice president) and Darrell Vig

Background:  Casey Peterson & Associates will present the FY2021-22 audit report summary.

Background:  Whitewood Elementary Principal, Brit Porterfield, will update the Board on the ABC After-School Program that is available at Whitewood Elementary. 

Background:  SBHS Principal, Pete Wilson, will provide an update on the recommended schedule changes for Sturgis Brown High School.

Background:  The monthly financial reports for the board’s review.  Brett Burditt will answer any questions you might have regarding financials. 

Background:  The Superintendent, Business Manager and the Buildings & Grounds Department are requesting the Board approve the GMP Amendment with Scull Construction for the SBHS Cafeteria Project in the amount of $7,945,453.00. The GMP cost summary is on page 20. Alternates to contract are on page 21.

Background:  Golden West Telecommunications is requesting a right-of-way easement for fiber optic cable at Opal School. The easement would be on the south side of the property running from east to west west, just inside the boundary. A legal description of the easement and a map indicating where the fiber optic cable easement will be approximately located is attached.

Background:  Business Manager, Brett Burditt is requesting authorization to advertise for custodial services at Stagebarn MS for FY24-25. Advertisements will run the weeks of March 8 and 15 with bids due on March 23.

Background:  Business Manager, Brett Burditt is requesting authorization to advertise for custodial services at Piedmont Valley Elementary for FY24-25. Advertisements will run the weeks of March 8 and 15 with bids due on March 23.

Background:  There has been an adjustment to the construction contingency report for the PVE Classroom Addition Project. The attached Change Order #1 reduces the contract price by the contingency allocation. Business Manager, Brett Burditt is requesting the Board approve the revised contingency allocation report #3 and Change Order #1 as presented.

Background:  Petitions for school board vacancies can start being circulated on March 1, for the June 6, 2023 election.  The three 3-year terms that are ending are Holly Good, Joseph Urbaniak and Darrell Vig.  The publication for the Notice of Vacancies will run in the newspaper on February 15 and 22. The business office will have petitions available for the public to stop and pick up or obtain them online on the SD Secretary of State website. Signed petitions are due back to the business office no later than March 28, at 5:00 p.m.  The business office is requesting approval from the Board to enter into agreement with the Meade County Auditor's Office for the sole purpose of renting the electronic ballot tabulator for counting of the school board election results. By doing this, it will eliminate the need for workers to tally ballot results. The district will bear the costs of the usage of the ballot machine per the attached agreement.

Background:  The Meade School District is due to purchase replacement 1:1 devices for teachers and students. The proposal is to replace grades 5-8 MacBooks with iPads and supply classroom teachers with an instructional iPad. Additionally, the proposal includes the replacement of aging MacBooks for grades 9-12 with new MacBooks. Attached is the proposal presentation from the December Board meeting and the Purchase/Service agreement with Apple in the amount of $1,578,377.25.

The Curriculum/Technology Department is requesting the Board to approve and enter into a 4-year computer lease-to-buy agreement with Apple, Inc. in the amount of $1,578,377.25 for the purchase of replacement devices in grades 5-8 and supply teachers with an instructional iPad, in addition to replacing aging Macbooks for grades 9-12 with new MacBooks.

Background:  The Curriculum/Technology Department is requesting the Board approve the replacement of the current content filter, Linewize, with Lightspeed Systems for the amount of $13,160.00. Lightspeed will be more compatible with the MDM Software, the State firewall and the AD management systems that the district uses now. Attached is the proposed cost, which has already been included in the Capital Outlay Fund.

Background:  The Curriculum/Technology Department has selected Mitel Phone System, which is serviced by Marco, to replace the phone system for the district in the amount of $124,280.89. This agreement will purchase the replacement of telephones and servers and upgrade the VoIP software. The funds have been budgeted for the FY2024 school year.

Background:  The Buildings & Grounds Department is requesting the Board enter into a 3-year set up and monitoring purchase agreement in the amount of $500.00 with Western States Fire Protection to replace the current copper line with a cellular monitoring line in the Williams Administrative Building.

Background:  The first Board Policy BFC: Policy Adoption below is the new format we plan on using for revisions.  The Policy Committee has reviewed the following School Board policies and submit for first reading or was reviewed and not changed: 

1. First Reading BFC: Policy Adoption
2. First Reading GCNB*: Evaluation of Administrators (note: not revised in format due to minor revisions for accreditation)
3. Reviewed and not ready for changes - Policy JECB/JECC: Admission of Non-resident Student/Assignment of Resident District

Background:  This is the first reading of School Board Policy BFC: Policy Adoption.  This will be the new format of policies from the committee for revision or adoption.

Background:  This is the First Reading of School Board Policy GCNB*: Evaluation of Administrators. The recommended changes are highlighted in yellow.

Background:  This is the first reading of School Board Policy JFCE: Anti-Bullying/Harassment of Students. The recommended changes are highlighted in yellow.

Background:  The Sturgis Elementary custodial services contract for FY23 with Loose Endz was for one year with a one-year extension clause if performance was satisfactory. The recommendation would be to extend the contract for FY24-25 at the same contract price of $151,241.00. Action will take place at the March board meeting.

Background:  The district has three days which have not been made up.  From the previous Board discussion, there was no support for making up student days unless we went below the minimum hours required.  

Student:
If needed, I propose additional time be added to the end of the day to make up hours to meet the minimum state hours required.  At this time, all schools meet the minimum hours required.

Staff:
I propose that the last day for staff would be Thursday, May 25 (see 10d. for more details).  The other two days will be self-directed staff development for teachers to do on their own time this summer.

Background:  The superintendent is requesting to hold the Staff Reception and Recognition Banquet the morning of Thursday, May 25, as part of a teacher in-service make-up day.  All staff would participate in the banquet and the celebration will continue to be open to families and the public, with breakfast being served instead of dinner.  When finished the teachers will have staff development.

The following board members are on the Employee Recognition Committee: Charlie Wheeler, Sandy Cass, Justin Jutting and Joe Urbaniak.

Background:  February is typically when the district starts advertising for retirees, resignations and new positions. New positions require Board action to create the additional position, if there are any recommendations for new positions, those recommendations will be brought back to the March Board meeting. 

Background:  Board members requested alternative calendars be prepared to show added instructional minutes to eliminate Friday school days.

Superintendent Wormstadt has done a five year comparison of past calendars (see attachment) to the one proposed with rural teacher input.  The 2023-24 calendar is similar to all previous calendars with most having 10 Fridays, one with 11 Fridays, and one with 8 Fridays.  The proposed calendar has 9 Fridays.

After reviewing the idea of adding time to the days (5-10 minutes), this would not be beneficial to our students' core learning time to lose 4-5 full days of instruction. Mr. Wormstadt does not recommend doing this and it only be used for make-up days for multiple cancelations of school due to weather.

Recommend that the calendar presented be adopted in March with one change.  Eliminate one student contact day (Friday) to allow for work time to be added in as one full day or two half days for teachers.

Background:  Attached are the 2024-25 school calendars suggested by the administration team for the Board to review. Mr. Wormstadt will answer any questions the Board may have.

Background:  Board reports are included in the Board packet.

Background:  Board Finance Committee:  Adhoc committee of board leadership to meet with the Business Manager and Superintendent over the next 3-4 months as needed. 

Legislative Update

Cracker Barrel Sessions

 

Background:  Feb 11 - ASBSD Cracker Barrel (Rapid City)
Feb 13 - Site Visit to SES>SWMS
Feb 17 - No School - Teacher In-Service
Feb 20-24 - ASBSD School Board Recognition Week
March 4 - Meade Co. Cracker Barrel (Sturgis)
March 4 - ASBSD Cracker Barrel (Rapid City)


 

Background:  SDCL 1-25-2 Executive or closed meetings--Purposes--Authorization--Violation as misdemeanor.

Executive or closed meetings may be held for the sole purposes of: Click on link SDCL 1-25-2 for all reasons for executive session.

Meade school board will enter into executive session under 1-25-2.4 Employment Negotiations.