The Broadus School Board Trustees met Monday evening in the stale air of the PRCDHS auditorium, as the mercury outside hit 98 degrees for the day. Board members present at the meeting included Shasta Madsen, Danny Johnson, Amanda Zimmer, Waylon Billing, Raquel Mader, and Rob Jones.
The board heard from Broadus Schools Counselor Dori Phillips regarding an increase in fees for the Montana Digital Academy, an online learning platform used by Broadus Schools to offer a variety of electives and dual-credit classes not found in an in-person environment, such as foreign language classes.
Phillips noted that the state legislature kept the MTDA’s budget at its former levels while costs continued to grow, which means that Broadus will now be on the hook for students taking classes through the academy to the tune of $123 per credit; the previous charge was $0.
Broadus students have taken well over 100 MTDA courses since 2016, and Phillips commented that with the price increase the board may face a tough decision on whether or not to allocate funding for these classes in the future.
School Principal Denise Ternes then gave a report about the Student Council election; Rachel Rasmussen will be the Student Council President, Lacey Robinson the Vice President, and Lea Aye the Secretary/Treasurer.
Hirings included Kaylee Rohrer as a Substitute Teacher, Kim Blain as a music aide, and summer workers Kelly Babb, Oliveah Schaffer, Riley Mitchell, Brandon Rogers, and Matt Hansen.
The 2021/22 school calendar was approved. The board discussed days off during the spring semester, with a motion certifying days off on January 14th, February 17th and 18th, March 18th, and April 22nd.
The board then approved minor changes to several handbooks, including those for the classified staff, certified staff, transportation, and students.
Next on the agenda, the board approved the use of a bus for the FFA Nationals, which is set to take place October 27-30 of this year, in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The trustees then heard the report from the Activity Committee. Activities Director Mike Richards spoke to the board about a poll given via email to students, which indicated support for Girls Wrestling. The sport became officially sanctioned by the MHSA in 2020, with the first Girls State Tournament held this spring. Four Broadus girls indicated they would like to come out for wrestling if the sport was available. In order to comply with Title IX laws, a boys sport would need to be added if Girls Wrestling became available in the school. Richards indicated Boys Cross Country would be the added sport, as one boy showed interest in running during the survey. Boys Cross Country would also provide a second sport for boys during the fall to go along with football, while Girls Wrestling would provide a second winter sport for girls, to go along with Basketball.
Mike spoke of the costs involved with adding the two sports, which would initially be given a one year trial run. Uniforms would need to be purchased, and additional hotel rooms would be rented when the teams were on the road. Depending on the number of wrestlers in total who came out for the sport, an additional assistant coach may be needed to handle the work load. Estimated costs would add around 2500 to 3800 dollars to the wrestling program, and a bit more to the cross country program.
Discussion was held about the additional programs, with each board member voicing their opinion on the matter. The consensus seemed to be that with stable to declining enrollment numbers and potential budget shortages in the future, this seemed to be a bad time to add new sports opportunities.
Another point of contention centered on a potential increase in activities fees for students. In order to generate additional revenue to offset sports program costs, the idea had been floated of changing the $25 per year fee to $25 per sport. Thus a student participating in fall, winter, and spring sports would pay $75 to participate. Jerry Coulter, who was at the meeting as a member of the public, spoke up about leaving the fees as is, as in his opinion increasing costs would garner a great deal of blowback from parents, and potentially drive down sports participation.
Other schools around the area have higher fees for activity passes compared to the fees in Broadus, according to Richards.
No motions were made on either the addition of new sports or fee increases, so for the time being fees will remain the same, and Girls Wrestling and Boys Cross Country will not be offered in Broadus.
The board then discussed the matter of the overflow of the trophy cases, and ways to mitigate the issue. The cases are completely full of various trophies and team photos from Broadus’ sports teams of yore, and a decision was needed on what trophies would go in the case in the future, and what needed to be done with the current stock of awards. One solution was presented as the board watched Mike Richards demonstrate a touch screen tv which could be mounted to a wall, and would display various awards and photos with the touch of a hand.
The program running on the tv was made by Rocket Alumni Solutions, and offered a way to digitize the various sports records (such as the top 25 in each sports statistic category), as well as a way to display team photos. The program was not limited to sports – academic achievements could also be displayed, such as the list of valedictorians, or the senior class photos throughout the years.
The setup was demonstrated as a way to clean up some of the “walls of stuff” present in the school, while also providing off-site hosting for the data, which could be an asset in the case of a fire.
The touch screen display would be mounted somewhere in the front hallway of the high school so that visitors to home sports games would be able to scroll through the screen, while the data would also be available for folks to view on their phones by scanning a bar code.
Richards indicated that the subscription service for the system would run $2400 per year (with the initial year reduced to $1999 if the school signed up within a specified time period). A 55” touch screen monitor to display the program would be an additional $2900.
When pressed by the editor of the Examiner as to whether this data could be made available on the school’s website or a similar site for reduced costs as opposed to the special service, Richards commented that someone would be need to be available to program the data, whereas this system had regular tech support and updates to keep things current.
Richards added that ad space was available on the program which could be sold to local businesses to help offset the subscription costs, while the Broadus Sports Boosters would also consider paying for a portion of the fees.
The board discussed the program, with one member mentioning that “it seemed like a lot of money for a fancy tv.” Discussion also centered on how they had just made a decision to drop the opportunity for kids to participate in additional sports, in part due to cost, and then turn around and spend money, with the counter argument being that the board would allow more opportunity for more people to see various records and accolades through the program.
The board ultimately voted unanimously to purchase the subscription service and touch screen.
The next item on the agenda was the movement of junior high sports trophies, which will now be in a trophy case in the junior high hallway. Coulter spoke in favor of the change, saying that students seeing the trophies in their hallway will inspire and help with confidence, and other schools that have separate junior highs would have their trophies on display, so the separation would be good here as well. The board voted in favor of the move.
A number of board policy updates were then gone through with a fine tooth comb. The policies come to the school through the Montana School Boards Association, which works to updates local boards with legal and regulatory needs.
The board approved an auction for surplus property, as well as a transfer of funds to Interlocal Fund 82, which is a yearly process.
A motion was approved to buy back a number of hours of vacation leave from District Clerk Dixie Mitchel, then the board moved to approve Mitchell’s payment of bills through July, as well as holding the next meeting in August.
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