School Board meets
The school board held their regular March meeting Monday, March 16.
They also held a special meeting last Thursday, March 12. At that meeting they held a budget workshop and discussed the amount to seek for an override levy. It was decided that in order to keep the number of teacher positions at status quo for 2026-27, they would look at a 0% increase in wages to keep in line with the state funding. A resolution was then adopted to set the levy amount at $275,000. This is $100,000 higher than last year mostly due to the projected cuts in state funding due to the budget shortfall.
At Monday’s meeting they voted to hire Tiffanee Lewis as the new first grade teacher. She is currently teaching in Pendleton but is moving to Grangeville and is Lucas Wemhoff’s fiancé. They had 4 applications and interviewed 3 of them. All 3 were strong candidates.
The board also voted to move the Fall Camp for 5th/6th grade from the fall to the spring. The reasoning is there is less going on in the spring. This would be for May of 2027.
Resurfacing of the track was also approved. They had eyed doing it last summer but the timing didn’t work out. They are looking at doing it in June right after school lets out. They plan to publicize the actual dates and let people know what days they won’t be able to use the track.
The new valedictorian and Salutatorian requirements were approved. These will take affect with for the class of 2030, this year’s 8th graders.
They discussed the gym foyer update that has been talked about for a couple years. They see the need to update the restrooms and cut down on the bottleneck created by the current entrance. Maybe they could get some ballpark estimates of cost from contractors.
A policy update was tabled to April to give board members time to go read through the proposed updates.
A couple of resignations were approved in the consent agenda. Kim Harman resigned as Junior High Girls Basketball Coach and Eric Coffelt resigned as Junior High Athletic Director.
In the reports, Jon Rehder shared data from the Idaho Reading Indicator testing in the Elementary School.
In his Elementary Principal report he said a hunter safety course was held March 2-6 with Morgan Deards of the Idaho Fish & Game and Jill Green. It went very well.
The Battle of the Books was to be held Wednesday, March 18 for the 5th and 6th graders.
At the Scratch for Schools sponsored by the Idaho Lottery the Elementary team came home with $754 which included a $500 ticket. The high school team earned $274. Maureen Munger, Becky Higgins and Rehder competed for the elementary school and Lisa Labrum, Whitney Westhoff and Katie Munger for the high school.
Blayne Mosman of Nezperce will be performing a concert for the elementary school on Friday, March 20 from 2 to 3 p.m. He will be sharing his passion for the guitar and playing music.
Parent-teacher conferences are next Monday and Tuesday.
Field trips are starting to be planned. The first one was Tuesday, March 17 for the 4th graders to Dworshak and the fish hatchery.
In his facilities report Rehder reported Georgia Carpet Works will be in on March 31 to install carpet in the hallway from the K-1 building to the cafeteria and inside the new library.
The school board went on a tour of the high school prior to Monday’s meeting.
The air purifiers arrived on March 11 and Rick Forsmann has them nearly all installed.
They officially moved over to InterMax for their phone system.
They are going to refinish all 3 gym floors this summer. It will likely be end of June or early July when they are done.
They are seeking bids on the gym roof at the high school. They will probably open them at the April meeting.
Matt Elven reported that Ryan Hasselstrom and Jeff Martin took 16 students to State BPA competition with Halee Rowland and Nadia Cash qualifying for nationals.
Liz McLeod took 19 students to state HOSA competition with many of them qualifying for nationals.
The 1st day of Jr. High Track practice was March 16 with 37 students signed up.
The girls basketball and boys basketball banquets were last week. The wrestling banquet has been rescheduled to Wednesday, March 18.
The Vitalant blood drive is set for Wednesday, March 18 at the high school. If they were able to get 40 donors the school would receive a $2,000 STEM grant.
Prairie League will be putting on a Sadie Hawkins semi-formal dance on Saturday, March 21 in the high school cafeteria.
Parent-Teacher conferences are Tuesday and Wednesday of next week at the Jr./Sr. High School.
SAT testing is set for April 8 at the Spirit Center.
ISAT testing is set for April 15-24 for 7th and 8th grade ELA & Math and 8th/11th grade Science. Other area schools also give the 11th grade testing to 9th graders and allow them to “bank” their scores. If they score well enough they would get the time off when they are juniors. The problem is testing space capacity. Board member Casey Forsmann suggested looking at the Released Time building.
The meeting adjourned at 8:08 p.m. The next regular meeting is set for Monday, April 20 at 7 p.m.