The Broadus School Board Trustees met for their regular monthly meeting on Monday evening. Trustee Rob Jones was absent from the meeting, and Trustee Dawn Aye attended via phone call.
Several hirings took place, including Raevyn Slovek as Family Consumer Science Teacher, and Chrystal Mitchell as Title 1 Teacher. Both of those hirings will use the Emergency Authorization status, which allows the hiring of non-certified teachers.
Also hired were Abigail Martin and Jerry Coulter as substitute teachers. Martin will be teaching Rebecca Boman’s classes while she is on maternity leave.
Marlee Brooks was hired as an Assistant Cook. She will split time between her classroom aide duties and the kitchen.
Donovan Sturtz was hired as an Assistant Custodian.
The school budget for the 2025 fiscal year was then discussed and approved. Property tax burdens for local taxpayers are set to go down, by around $95,000 in the elementary and $23,000 in the high school. Superintendent Hansen explained that additional funds from oil and gas revenue from the county have come in to help ease the burden on local taxpayers.
The total budget for the high school is $3,872,392.35, with $514,240.90 coming from district taxpayers, and 49.34 mills.
The elementary budget is $4,244,689.39. District taxpayers are on the hook for $497,972.16, or 58.42 mills.
The mental health program for teachers was also extended four months. This program has teachers and staff attending either a yoga class or walking after school and being paid for the process, with a goal of helping the health and wellness of those in attendance, and with a potential longer term goal of reducing longer term health risks. Several comments at the meeting indicated that the program has been a success, with overall happier teachers.
A point made by Hansen was that of how lucky Broadus is for its ability to recruit and maintain a full staff (many other Montana schools are struggling in this department), as well as having the funding available to work on some of the major infrastructure projects underway at the schools, such as the boiler replacement.
He also mentioned that Broadus was the first school in the state to conduct their exit interview on ESSER funds, which were Federal dollars dolled out to help with COVID relief.
Students are set to fill the halls on Tuesday, August 20th, the first day of school.
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