The school board trustees, met for their monthly meeting at their “original” location in the student lounge after a nearly three year sojourn into the auditorium during the COVID times. The December meeting was the first in the lounge since March of 2020, when social distancing guidelines first forced the move into the auditorium.
Board members present at the meeting included Amanda Zimmer, Waylon Billing, Jay Schroeder, Dan Johnson, and as soon as he was sworn in and took his oath of office, new board member Dan Krantz.
During the hearing of the public the board heard from Stephanie Bowers, who described the need for a bus route on East River Road South. The bus route was stopped after Ray Traub’s retirement; at the time the route had few students, and instead of bidding a new route the school pays mileage for parents to drive their kids into town. Bowers communicated that there are currently three students along the route, and in coming years there will be nine school age kids. Her goal in speaking to the board was to make them aware of the number of upcoming students, and get them thinking about the potential to open up a bid for the route.
There were no transportation or attendance contracts this month.
Next on the agenda, the board accepted the resignation of 2nd grade teacher Laura Lambert, effective at the end of the school year, as well as accepting the resignation of Gordon Archer as volleyball coach. The board also hired Marlee Bilbrey as part-time classroom aide in the elementary.
The board then went over several Montana High School Association proposals, which Activities Director Mike Richards will vote on at the MHSA Annual Meeting next week in Missoula. One proposal of note included the potential addition of a “multiplier” for private schools. If enacted, the enrollment numbers of a private school would be multiplied by a certain amount, say 1.5, to come up with a higher enrollment. This would mean schools like Manhattan Christian would likely be bumped up to Class B, given their new higher enrollment number due to the multiplier. Trustee Billing explained that since private schools are able to essentially recruit for players and students, they have an advantage over public schools of the same enrollment which are not able to recruit, and this advantage is often seen in sports where private schools continually excel at the State level. The thinking is that a potential bump up to a higher class might level the playing field, so to speak.
Other proposals on the MHSA agenda which likely wouldn’t have much effect in Broadus are the potential to appoint committees to study lacrosse and Esports (video games) as MHSA activities.
The board then discussed make-up days for the storm days missed this year. In previous years the school schedule had more of a buffer for missed days, but the schedule this year has very little room for storm days. With multiple days missed already this school year for storms, a decision had to be made on whether to go to school extra days, or go to school until 3:20 on Fridays, making the time back an hour per week.
The board decided to change the schedule to go to school on this Friday, January 13th, as well as making up days by going to school on Thursday, February 16th and Monday, March 13th. Those days were originally scheduled to be off of school.
Superintendent Hansen spoke with the board about the bus route policy, noting that if Highway 212 is closed or in severe driving conditions, there were questions about whether any buses should be driving the route anyway, even those which only drove a mile or two of Hwy 212.
Board members brought up conversations held with community members during the last closure which centered around remote learning during the shutdowns. Broadus did not institute remote learning during that time period for several reasons – internet service being a major factor. Even during COVID remote learning, major difficulties with internet connectivity in portions of the county meant a number of students received work in packets, or were very limited in the amount of work they could accomplish when multiple students in one household were using the limited bandwidth.
Hansen went over the use of ESSR III funds in the budget, which were funds distributed by the Federal government as emergency relief during 2020 and 2021. The school is still able to use these funds to cover a portion of the budget, limiting the need for a levy on local taxpayers. Those funds may last through another year of school budget.
The board heard reports from the clerk, principal, and superintendent, then went into executive session to discuss the superintendent’s evaluation, as is standard procedure.
The next meeting of the board will take place Monday, February 13 at 7 pm.
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