Elementary staff reassignments
Elementary Coordinator Doug Anderson announced that 64 students were registered for kindergarten in the fall.
Because of changes in class sections, staff reassignments have been made.Wendy Schultz will be moving to sixth grade.
Katie Knudson will be moving to first grade.
Sara Ihrke will be moving to third grade. She will be looping her current second-grade class to third grade. Letters are being sent to the parents of her students.
Some discussion on “looping” ensued.
Superintendent Kevin Wellen endorsed looping as a potentially good thing. Students are already familiar with their teacher, and there is no “getting to know each other” phase.
Additionally, the reassignments inspired Wellen to suggest the district consider periodically changing teacher assignments as a matter of policy.
“If you’ve been teaching the same grade for five or six years, we might want to move you,” he proposed. “It could provide a fresh, new look at the job.”
Laptops for Smart Boards
The Board approved the $11,120 purchase of five MacBooks for classrooms equipped with Smart Boards.
The Smart Boards, which have already been the subject of much enthusiasm, can’t be used to full advantage unless appropriate technology is in place to communicate smoothly with them.
The purchase was made because of a good price, though the acquisition had been planned for next year, and switches will still need to be purchased for the network next year.
Other business
Goeff Stieglbauer was approved for hire, becoming NRHEG’s first male paraprofessional.
Southern Minnesota Autism Coalition granted NRHEG $500 for classroom materials.
NRHEG PTO donated $2,413.19 for Artist in Residence supplies, and $686.53 for teacher requests.
Junior high spring coaches were approved for hire. There were too few students to approve the hire of a ninth-grade coach.
Changing the regular board meeting time from 7:30 p.m. to 6:30 or 7 was discussed. There being no problems with it, it was proposed, and will be on the agenda for April, though it would normally be acted on at the annual Planning Meeting in July.
