School board meeting update from Sup Mark Wandle

Thanks for all you do.

The meeting had many things so this will be a long update. I will do my best to keep it brief.

Reports were covered- thanks that were doubled were to our staff verbally. All of you. The effort and stress of this time are noticed but we are fortunate to have great staff. Special thanks from Croy and Bruner to the local Masonic Lodge for the donation to the school in support of STEM activities, the Arts, and Music.

COVID 19 Update- It is an ever-evolving plan. Gave current status of cleaning plan for the building, our work staff plan for across the board and most importantly our meal delivery plan and the importance of using the huntley.k12.mt.us to fill out the survey to help collect data for our students and families support. We have a great staff that is volunteering to help clean, deliver meals, and other items as needed in addition to the planning for classes. The information I had shared on Friday to the community is still there. That is old news but I did not change it as I want to keep a correct historical timeline in case of any concerns or legal items. I will try to update the past due information on the previous items on the webpage and will begin to change the title with a date stamp to ensure I do not miscommunicate.

All Tenured staff rehired. They have 20 days to sign their contract. Congratulations and welcome back for 2020-2021!

Marlene Krum (Activity/Lunch Clerk) Scott Gierke (Maintenance and Facilities Manager) Ginger Buchanan (Food Service Manager) Tim Bastian (Activity and Transportation Director) were hired.

The permissive levy projection is attached. We need to notify our community of these amounts so these must be advertised in the YCN.

We had a discussion on mill levy votes. I had posted, last Friday that I was going to recommend that we run a general mill levy and a safety mill levy for approximately $98,9352.24 combined. This would have been an economic tax increase of approximately $23.56 for a household of $200,000 value. I changed my recommendation at the meeting and went against my own plan due to the economic stresses and uncertainty due to our current situation. After some great questions, concerns and thoughts we decided not to run the general mill levy. We have needs but we can use a budget amendment to get us through this difficult situation. This will not be able to be sustained and without some type of funding resolution in the future, we will have to make cuts.

Outcome: We will not run a general mill levy.

We did approve my recommendation that the HP Schools run a building reserve safety mill to hire a School Resource Officer who will help support safety on campus and build positive relationships with students on campus. If this does not pass we will be able to pay for the SRO but it will limit our plan for a much-needed air filtration system in the CTE Industrial Arts Building.

Outcome: We will run a building safety mill for $35,000.00 Projected 2020-2021 Safety mill levy: Amount per year– For a $100,000 home/land the mill increase is $4.20 Amount per year– For a $200,000 home/land the mill increase is $8.40.

We approved to use the contracts for support of The Student Data Privacy Consortium for approved these apps, extensions, and websites for use by schools. This was imperative for approval to align the Huntley Project School District with the requirements in house bill 745.

We rescinded our Montana Office of Public Instruction variance to standards as we are fully accredited now.

We approved 2 new additions to our substitute list. We had a concern about the age of substitutes with certain age students but that was addressed as we will ensure the appropriateness of age-related substitutes. The board understood and approved both substitutes added to the list.

SNAP 2020 was approved to use a bus and our insurance for the SNAP 2020 evening at the Billings YMCA.

We are approved to post a job for the part-time 5-8 counselor and keyboarding position. The value of this position will be offset by the combining of several other positions that included the AD/Transportation and other staff adjustments.

We extended FMLA leave for a valued staff member.

We had no bids on the obsolete equipment and it will be sent to scrap.

The June board meeting date has not been changed as some of the meetings that the clerk and superintendent were to attend may not take place due to the current situation.

Have a great day. Connections Matter!