The last meeting of the year saw Mid-Prairie Board of Education members dressed festively in holiday sweaters, one lit up with multi-colored bulbs, and another flashing with green glitter. 

The meeting room itself was crowded at the edges with shopping bags, wrapping paper, and gifts, evidence of the district’s work to make sure students in need receive gifts from the community.  ALC Principal Amy Shalla said 160 students will receive gifts this year, almost double the number from last year. 

“I think it’s huge,” board member Jake Snider said of the project.

FFA National Convention highlights

The Dec. 12 work session began with a presentation by students Marissa Cline and Gabi Robertson, Mid-Prairie FFA chapter president and chapter reporter respectively, about their trip to the 95th National FFA Convention in Indianapolis in October. 

After showing slides and reviewing the highlights of their trip, board president Jeremy Pickard asked what the FFA members brought back to their chapter from their experience at the national convention.

“I think we just brought back the aspect of loving FFA,” Cline said.  “I’ve done two years now, and every year I come back with more passion for FFA, more passion for agriculture.”

Administrator highlights

With time left on the clock before the 7 p.m. meeting, administrators had time to share some of the notable things happening in their schools. 

Middle School principal Rob Hruby acknowledged that on this year’s Iowa school report card, “The middle school was at commendable, which is great, but we were identified in terms of our special ed students.” 

He said that the school is assessing their work, “looking at social, emotional, behavioral health pieces and develop[ing] an action plan for how we’re going to help those students improve on that.  It’s a long process, it’s a three-year thing. . . That’s something we’re looking forward to taking on and that is really heavy lifting.”

East Elementary principal Greg Jergens said that for both elementary schools, “It’s a curricular review year for mathematics.  We’ve had staff members from K-5 who are piloting a couple of the new programs we’re considering, which has been pretty cool.”

“The last couple weeks have been a lot of fun,” he added.  “We’re doing a lot of things holiday related.  The halls are pretty much decorated, and the kids are enjoying some fun days, and the staff is enjoying some fun days.”

Frank Slabaugh, team lead for the Virtual Academy, reported that “We are serving 25 students currently” and that “Every month since the start of the school year, I’ve had a family or somebody either moving into the district or somebody from outside of the district who has inquired about our virtual academy and wanting to enroll.”

“You guys just approved at the last board meeting a family from Pella, so that’s the farthest away that we’ve had. . . I think they saw our scores or something and said that that stood out to them above other virtual academies, so to me, I’m very pleased with that.  The company that we use is wanting to highlight us because of the success that we are seeing with our virtual academy,” he added.

Superintendent Brian Stone said that he was elected representative for Southeast Iowa on the Executive Council for the Iowa High School Athletic Association.  “We get nominated for this, which I certainly did not nominate myself, but I think it is a great opportunity,” he commented.

Board action

During the business meeting portion of the evening, the board took the following action:

They approved second readings of Board Policy 802.4 Fixed Assets and Board Policy 708 Care, Maintenance and Disposal of School District Records. 

By a unanimous roll call vote, the board passed a Budget Guarantee Resolution for fiscal year 2023-2024. 

“We’re doing this budget resolution now because our October 1, 2022, count for resident students was down 30.6 students.  It’s offset by the fact that we have 29 open-enrolled in students coming, so our net is about one,” board secretary Jeff Swartzentruber explained.

“We’ll build for those open-enrolled in students, but what we’re going to do for our resident students, there is a high possibility that our revenue won’t reach last year’s revenue.  So, we’re allowed to do a 101% budget guarantee, and that’s what we’re moving to do now rather than wait until we see what the State Legislature has to say.  So, let’s just take care of this now, get it on the books, and then if we don’t need it, we won’t use it,” he said.

The board approved first reading of Board Policy 507.9 Cardiac Emergency Response Plan/Automatic External Defibrillator (AED).  Stone said the update comes at the request of the nurses.

“We’re just getting things up to speed a little bit, and we have all the equipment and the facilities that are necessary.  So, nothing drastic here, obviously, but just a good update as to what we’ve got going on in our building,” he commented.

Facility task force/architect search process

Perhaps the most significant task in front of the board Monday night was taking the next step toward their next bonding opportunity.  Stone said he was working with Snider to put together a facilities task force that will look into the projects vetted during the last bond process. 

The task force will work collaboratively with an architectural firm to ensure the projects are feasible; Pickard said it is just due diligence that the board review proposals and qualifications from several firms before choosing one.  The district is working with Shive-Hattery, Inc. on their current construction projects.

The board carried a motion to approve the Request for Qualifications from several architectural firms.   The board or a subset of such expects to meet in closed session on Jan. 9 to narrow the firms down to 3 or 4 finalists, and then again on Jan. 18 to interview the finalist firms.

The board then entered closed session to discuss the purchase or sale of a particular real estate parcel.

The next regular meeting will be Monday, Jan. 9 at 6:15 p.m. at the Central Office Community Room.