Colby School District adjusts kindergarten classes
The Colby School Board convened on Monday, August 16 for their regularly scheduled monthly meeting. During the meeting, discussion was held over how a recent resignation of a kindergarten teacher would effect staffing for the upcoming school year, as well as the next steps to be taken for the search for a new superintendent.
Staffing
Due to a recent resignation, the school district currently only has two kindergarten teachers on its staff for the 2022-23 school year. The position has been posted, but without any qualified candidates coming forward, alternative solutions needed to be examined.
Kolden and elementary school principal Brenda Medenwaldt have done an examination of the expected number of students to be enrolled in their kindergarten classes this coming school year. They found that if the class were split into two sections, each would have 21 students. According to Kolden, these numbers are similar to those of last year, where each kindergarten section had approximately 20 students. In light of these numbers and the fact that no qualified candidate has been found to replace the third teacher, Kolden proposed that the kindergarten class for the 2022-23 school year be split into two sections rather than its normal three.
To assist with the potential larger class sizes due to this change, the district is looking to hire a full-time, regular education teacher assistant for the 2022-23 school year. Currently, the district does not have any regular education aides; all those currently employed with the Colby schools work with the special education department. It is expected that one of those aides working currently within the realm of special education would take the position. This teacher aide would likely assist with both classrooms.
Board member Lony Oestreich had questions regarding what the school might do if additional students who have not already registered are added to the roster.
“If, let’s say we get to the first week of school and five or six kids are added, is there a number that if we go over the top of it that we would need to do something differently?” Oestreich asked. “I don’t know if it’s common, but if you have kids that show up, what do we do?”
“We will have kids that will show up and kids that won’t show up,” Kolden said in response. “So that’s where it gets to be tough. You get to those bubble numbers, and once you get to a number between 45 to 50, and then you are pushing 25, 26 kids, that’s where it gets to be difficult. When you get over 60, it becomes really easy to rationalize three sections, because then you have three sections of 20.”
Kolden also stated that class makeup also has a big impact on how easy or difficult a classroom is to manage.
“Some groups of kids are just easier,” he added. “Going back to when I was in the classroom, I had some large classes that were easy, and some small classes that were really tough, based on the dynamics of the kids.”
Kolden admitted that while this is not an ideal solution, he believed that the school will be better off hiring the aide and trying to run two sections, while still keeping the posting for the kindergarten teacher open for applicants.
Superintendent Search
The board approved the draft for their request for proposals (RFP) aimed at finding an experienced executive search firm to aid them in connecting with and interviewing candidates for the school superintendent position. These RFPs are to be sent out to various firms and lays out both the scope of work that is expected of the agency that is hired, as well as criteria for the proposals that the board will be expecting an prospective agency to provide.
As discussed in a prior meeting, it was recommended to the board that they utilize the services of a search firm when looking for and interviewing candidates for current superintendent Dr. Steve Kolden’s replacement. Kolden will be retiring next year and the proposed start date for his replacement is slated for July 1, 2023.
The first step of this process was to draft an RFP that would lay out what the school board wants in a search firm. Over the last month, such a request was created and was presented to the board as a whole on Monday.
Within the request, the board states the duties that they would expect the agency to perform. These include uncovering position requirements and qualifications by interviewing board members, school staff, and the public, providing advisory services to the board, identification and assessment of candidates, assisting with logistics of final interviews, and ensuring a successful conclusion to the search.
The bulk of the duties lie in the finding and assessing of candidates. According to the request, the school board would expect the hired firm to recruit and advertise through multiple mediums, including the creation, distribution, and utilization of print and web-based advertising, as well as conducting a narrower personal outreach recruitment process. They would also like the hired firm to collect the relevant background information on candidates and assist the board with the pre-screening process. This will hopefully allow the board to reach a larger number of candidates and give them the tools necessary to narrow them down before interviews begin.
The RFP also describes what the board is expecting from a proposal from a prospective firm. Of importance to the board is the experience and qualifications of the firm, a work plan on how the firm plans to tackle the duties described with the scope of the work, overall cost, references from prior clients, and the company’s philosophy on how they try to ensure client satisfaction.
A general timeline was also included at the end of the RFP. The requests are to be sent out later this week and proposals from search firms are due by September 16. Over the following month, the board will screen the agencies and select final lists for interviews. After the interviews are conducted, the board expects to have selected and approved a firm by October 17.
_ The board approved a budget not to exceed $115,106 for weight room HVAC upgrades. The original estimation from Complete Control Inc. was closer to $60,000, but after a closer examination of the space and an actual calculation of cost of materials, the total reached an amount closer to the now approved budget. The board’s facilities committee stated that the reasoning behind doing the upgrades in this fashion was that the weight room may not always remain a weight room and if the space needed to be changed back into two separate rooms, the HVAC system needs to accommodate for that. Kolden stated that there was one system that was a little cheaper, but it would not have the capabilities to control two separate spaces. The project will be using COVID-19 Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds.
_ Two projects involving adding additional FOB access points around the school also had their funding approved. Many of the doors around the three schools require a FOB key to open them for security purposes and these would add these access points to doors around the schools that currently do not require a FOB key.
One project will be adding these to the locker rooms in the high school and the middle, as well as the interior double doors in the elementary school. These allow access to the locker rooms to be restricted during times that they should not be in use and will give staff and students easier access to the elementary school, as the current system requires the use of a manual key to access the double doors when locked.
The other, which would be covered under a School Safety grant that the district has applied for but has not yet received, would involve adding the access points to the auditorium equipment room, the high school IT/ server room, and the exterior doors to the two men’s locker room at the high school.
The former’s budget is not to exceed $31,920 and the latter is to not exceed $23,700. These too will be using ESSER funds.
_ The board approved a motion to block the access to certain websites while using the school’s guest wi-fi network. The sites to be blocked are the social network platforms Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. This is to prevent students from utilizing the guest wi-fi to access those sites during the school day.
_ The board briefly examined a revision to the employee handbook that would increase the base and novice pay of non-exempt hourly staff, which includes positions such as maintenance, cooks, and secretaries. It was explained that the district was not providing a competitive wage for these positions when compared to other area schools and the increase would bring them more in line with others. However, it was suggested by personnel committee member Jean Schmitt that the board take no action on this item at this time, allowing it to be taken back to the committee for further evaluation. Under that supervision, the board made no motion to approve this action, which will then allow it to be discussed further by the personnel committee.
