December 16, 2024 at 5:00 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Discussion:  Dr. Jonas introduced Mrs. Wendy Bartels. Mrs Bartels stated as the school's Safe Schools Coordinator, she wanted to share her approach, which is always to go through a proactive lens instead of reactive. She advised that staying proactive helps to stay organized and have better outcomes. Mrs Bartels stated she is also a big-picture thinker and likes to look outside the box and think what if. This helps in group settings and catching areas they may not have thought of previously regarding safety events. She said one of the big updates that she has been working on and is so excited to have completed is that she has been working with Mrs. Richeson on the new safety protocols and new safe schools manuals. These have been talked about being updated for a couple of years and with the new 2025 updates, Mrs. Bartels has now gotten them completed with the most current updates possible and should now be good for a while. Along with these, we also have updated maps. Mrs. Bartels stated that Mr. Ryker had started a practice back in September which was taking a safe school protocol, for example, the hold protocol and talking about and practicing it. This is being done on the elementary side of the school as well and staff are now doing this for a new protocol each week. Mrs. Bartels stated the goal is to keep practicing these as we go and has always taught the kids we teach to prepare, not to scare. She feels that as much as we can share with the students and the why, then in an actual event, they understand that this is what we do, why we do it and that we are ok and safe. She advised that practice for everyone will help ensure everything is handled in the best way possible and that everyone remains calm. Mrs. Bartels confirmed that we practice monthly fire drills as well as monthly holds. She advised that to ensure kids don't get comfortable with the hold drills and the same person always announcing them, she has implemented different staff members to announce the hold drill alerts. She stated she has always been big on communication and the saying, if you see something, say something and feels that this is one of the best ways to keep our school as safe as possible. Mrs. Bartels informed the board about her training she has been attending, including a 2-day threat assessment training, a safety summit, and psychological first aid for schools, which she stated is kind of the new name for the crisis team. She is also having their quarterly safe schools meeting this week with a committee which will also give their input. Dr. Jonas stated Mrs. Bartels, for those who may be less familiar with the term hold, could you tell us what that means and why we might use the hold protocol. Mrs Bartels stated that the hold protocol is not meant to upset anyone, it is used when we need to hold everyone in place. For example, if someone got on the intercom right now and said hold, we would just shut the door and hold in place and do business as usual. A hold could come from a random dog that may have gotten into the school and is running down the halls, which has happened. Another example could be if we might have some custodial workers that are doing their absolute best and are following all their safety procedures, and a very large light bulb falls on the ground and breaks. A few years ago, we had a line break out on the lower elementary playground causing a gas leak, and so they didn't want anyone outside, so that would be another reason to go into a hold. When this happened, everyone panicked and, of course, the first thing you want to do is go look, and you want to go outside and that is what we don't want happening, so now that we have talked about it and practiced it, we know it's just business as usual. A typical hold drill might just be a couple of minutes and is not meant to block any educational learning. Mrs. Bartels asked if there were any questions and Mrs. Brass stated that she had the opportunity to listen to former law enforcement at one of their meetings and one of the things they talked about was the consistency among schools for using terminology like a hold, so if you have district speech here, and you say hold, every kid knows what that means regardless of the school district that they came from. Mrs. Brass stated she thought that was a really cool thing, knowing how many times we have kids from all over. Mrs. Bartels said yes, and another thing too is that, with the standard response protocol, there is a school side, but the protocol is very similar for hospitals and community areas, so it is very widely known and pretty universal. Dr. Jonas asked Mrs Bartels to talk briefly about Wednesdays when we have leadership meetings and what you bring to the table and how that's helped our team. Mrs Bartels stated for our Wednesday meetings, she will bring a safe school scenario which she pulls from lots of different areas. For example, someone who is not acting safely comes into the front office. She stated she would read off the scenario and what the concern is and say go, and they would practice everything that would be in line with what they would do first and then the next steps. They would discuss what sort of protocol would need to happen by writing, then stopping and debriefing. Mrs. Bartels stated she likes to keep it real by using situations that have happened somewhere and bringing into account what they processed and what they forgot. A huge one for us right now, for anywhere, it doesn't matter if you're a school, or you're in a corporation, technology is huge and is one of the first things that people try to get a hold of. The crisis team has been practicing written statements and there is a protocol for getting a brief statement out on what's happening and updates because you want to tell the truth and be honest about what is happening, but it also helps bring anxiety down. Mrs. Bartels advised it might be good for the board to have the newest updated plans so they can be updated on those protocols as it is important to all of us. Dr. Jonas thanked Mrs. Bartels for her important work in that area. 

 
 

Discussion:  No public participation. 

Discussion:  Dr. Jonas advised there are no resignations but went over the 4 retirements attached. Mr. Fornoff gave a big thank you to the 4 staff members for their years of service. Mr. Dalrymple agreed and stated these are all veteran teachers and that we wish them well as they have impacted a lot of students. He stated he had the privilege of having two of them as teachers. 

Discussion:  Dr. Jonas stated this is a moment to celebrate and read the rationale. She asked Mr. Wyatt to confirm that it is 12 to 13 years early that we finished on these bond payments. Mr. Wyatt confirmed that was correct.  

Discussion:  Dr. Jonas confirmed that The Chesterman Company is Coca-Cola and that we have a long-standing relationship with Coca-Cola, but when our contract came up for evaluation, the facilities committee said let's make sure that we are competitive in this area, so we did solicit bids from both Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The Chesterman Company presented us with a really wonderful contract that is very competitive. It also includes a lot of front line services, like a local representative, someone we can call that actually comes out and helps. They also do a buyback program for things that we purchase, like if we bought too much for state track, they will buy it back from us so we are not stuck with a bunch of expired products. They have someone that is in our building almost every week, and it is a really quick phone call to be able to check in with them. So, overall, we just appreciated that personal touch in the contract, and we had some good discussion as the facilities committee about what that might look like and ultimately feel this is the right direction to go for the school district. Mr. Fornoff asked if there was any comment from the facilities committee on the decision-making process. Mr. Dalrymple stated this was a pretty easy decision based on the contracts and Mr. Fornoff stated you are exactly right. 

Discussion:  Dr. Jonas read over the 2 attached policies. 

Discussion:  Mr. Fornoff read the rationale and confirmed the personnel committee would be meeting with Dr. Jonas later this week to go over the results of the evaluation. 

Discussion: 

1. Personnel Committee Mr. Fornoff - Mr. Fornoff confirmed they are set to have their 4th negotiated meeting with the NSEA this coming Wednesday and that everything is going fairly well. He stated he really appreciates the NSEA willingness to come up with new and innovative ideas to help make Gothenburg the best place to work that we possibly can. He also stated that he appreciates Mrs. Jobman and Mrs. Terrell's role on the committee, as it is a very time-consuming process, but it is really worth it in the end.  
2. Transportation and Facilities Mr. Wyatt - Mr. Wyatt confirmed he did not have anything. 
3. Finance Mrs. Jobman - Mrs. Jobman confirmed expenses are on track and that revenue is reduced as usual during this time of year but that it is on track. She advised that ESSER funds have all been received except $30,000.00 for the health and wellness grant which has been submitted, and not to mention the final bond payment which was made and is really exciting. 
4. Committee on American Civics Mrs. Terrell - Mrs. Terrell confirmed they had not met. 
5. Policy Review Mrs. Terrell - Mrs. Terrell confirmed they approved what our lawyer sent them for policy. 

Discussion:  See attached reports. 

Discussion:  Next meeting Monday January 13th @ 6 PM.