Tri-County School District ISD #2358 Regular Board of Education Meeting February 12, 2025

The meeting was called to order by Chairperson Murray at 6:30 p.m. A quorum was determined.  

The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.

Members Present were A Anderson ,R Hanson, M Koland, K Helling, S Murray, and K Oliver, D Olson

Members Absent were: None

Also Present was Superintendent McKeever.

We are Proud

Melissa Thompson 

• We are proud of Josephine Wade, Jaxon Melcher, Marianna Folland, Max Severson, Elijah Sollund, Braelyn Gonshorowski, Abigail Gunnarson, Kristen McGregor, Eli Hartmann, Dorothy Westervelt, Lydia Hanson, Eri Housey, Eli Klegstad, and Finley Duray for competing and placing 1st in the Sub-Section 31 One-Act Play contest on Tuesday, January 28th with the play “The Cages We Build.” Their victory advanced them to the Section competition on Saturday, February 1st, where they competed against seven other schools in Region 8A for the right to compete at the State competition. Tri-County placed 5th overall, missing 2nd place by 2 points. Congratulations to the entire team on this outstanding achievement. We are also proud of the Tri-County One-Act drama department for taking home sub-section 1st place honors five years in a row.

Mara Gust 

• We are proud of the fledgling Tri-County Knowledge Bowl team for a great start to the season! Keep it up! 

Melissa Thompson 

• Christine Hanson is on FIRE with her reading goals! She crushed 150 AR points in Quarter 1 and then leveled up to an incredible 212.6 AR points in Quarter 2! Her love for reading totally shows. #ReadingRockstar 

Justina Pietruszewski 

• We are proud of FCCLA members Katie Clark, Ada Pearson, Brynlee Reese, Josephine Wade, Greta Rominski, Hadley Reese, Elin Reese, Ella Strozyk, Piper Olson, Christy Hanson, Jillian Duray, Elijah Sollund, Noah Kraulik, Kobe Oberg, Makayla Gunnarson, Sophia Novacek and Eri Housey for their fabulous performance at the Mid-Winter STAR Event competition held at TC on January 15! All members advanced to the State level of competition. At the Mid-Winter level, participants are only recognized as either ‘State Advancers’ or not. However, it’s noteworthy that all Tri County FCCLA members earned scores in the silver and gold range on the National rubrics for their events—a great accomplishment! Groups and events were as follows: 

• Ada, Katie, Brynlee-Sports Nutrition-Level 3 

• Josie-Career Investigation-Level 3 

• Greta-Focus on Children-Level 2 

• Hadley and Elin-Event Management-Level 1 

• Ella and Piper-Focus on Children-Level 1 

• Jillian and Christy-Interior Design-Level 1 

• Noah and Elijah-Sports Nutrition-Level 1 

• Kobe and Makayla-Food Innovations-Level 1 

• Sophia and Eri-Repurpose and Redesign-Level 1

Motion by member K Oliver second by member A Anderson to approve the agenda as Presented.

Citizen Comments: None

Motion by K Oliver, second by K Helling to approve the minutes of the January 08, 2025 meeting as presented. UC

Pay Claims

Audit Committee: Koland/Helling

Motion by M Koland, seconded by S Murray to authorize payment for February, 2025 claims in the funds as presented in the total amount of $ 294,088.79. UC

FUND THIS YEAR             PREVIOUS YR

01 GENERAL $206,108.47 $94,022.09

02 FOOD SERVICE $12,424.15 $11,035.52

04 COMMUNITY SERVICE $49.78 $0.00

07 DEBT REDEMPTION $75,079.68 $0.00

21 STUDENT ACTIVITIES $426.71             $2,128.24

TOTAL $294,088.79 $107,185.85 

Boards & Committee Report

1. NWRIC

2. MCC

3. MSBA

4. GMRTC Joint Powers Board-Mtg Wed., February, 19th at 5:00pm @GMR School

5. School Board Committees

Superintendent Report – February 12, 2025 

1. Compensatory Aid: We all need to keep a very close eye on this topic and will need to begin contacting our local legislators on the direction of this revenue. In the past it was completely linked to free and reduced applications. However, with the advent of free lunches for all, this became an unreliable means to measure free and reduced lunch qualifiers. Most recently, it has been tied to Direct Certification based up students who automatically qualify for free and reduced lunches due to qualifying for Medicaid or SNAP. However, this qualifier does not qualify enough students, which brings down our eligibility for compensatory aid. For example: Next year if we were held harmless and income was allowed to stay the same we would receive $220,574.08 If the current law for next year is allowed to happen, we will receive $162,589.85 resulting in a loss of $57,984.23 Under Governor Walz’ proposal we would receive $229,662.75 for an increase of $9,088.67 We will push for the Governor’s proposal or at the very least to hold harmless. 

2. Bus Update: I have been trying to get some pricing for a new minibus. Mark and I spoke to some vendors at the MSBA conference, and I have spoken to some others as well. Quotes are wide ranging: a) $128,080 United Bus Sales b) $99,430 from North Central c) $99,875 from Hoglund We will need to be sure this is the option we want to go or consider other options. 

3. Brook Anderson’s license was approved and we will officially hire her as our 4th grade teacher for the remainder of the school year. 

4. Approve the contract to purchase. 

5. FTE of Lee Kobernick’s from Greenbush Middle River School. 

5. Health and Safety Report was conducted by Barb Schmitz. This is a yearly visit to conduct a mock OSHA inspection of all of our facilities. Jaron is working on the corrections and he and I will meet again soon to be sure we are in compliance. Some updates need to be done by Ron Ruud in our manuals as well. Her services are advisory only and are not directly linked to OSHA or OSHA related penalties. 

6. Meet and Confer: It would be good to schedule a couple meet and confer meetings during the school year to continue to build staff morale, communication, and the culture of our school. We are planning to move forward with scheduling two meetings a year, one in October and another in early March. We would get a list of topics in advance that the teachers would like to visit about. The team would consist of Oliver, Anderson, Olson, Dalia, and myself. I will work on scheduling a date on which to have this meeting. 

7. Social Media position: Dalia and I have been tossing the idea around about having a single person responsible for our social media presence. We have approached a couple staff members about an interest level in such a position and have received some favorable feedback. Just an idea at this point and we are trying to determine what our presence should be and in what. 

8. Jaron has spoken with Kyle Folland about coming to look at the bus garage to come up with a specific plan to modify it to fit all of our buses. We can then seek out another quote from others and get this moving this spring or early summer. 

9. The ICS Review was scheduled for this Friday, but Blair was sick, so we have moved it to next Tuesday. We want to start a review of our facility to help us plan for the coming years on what improvements we may need to make. 

10.We received a generous donation from Wikstrom for $3583 to be used for technology expenses. A big thank you to them for all they do for us. 

11. I also spoke to Wikstrom while they were here about updating our camera system to have updated software, digital cameras for greater clarity, and the infrastructure to make it all work. The total cost would be about $10,000. We will look into using some of our safe school money to do this. I will see what is available in that account.

Motion by K Oliver, second by R Hanson to accept the donations listed below. 

Generous donation by Wikstrom Telephone Company of $3583 to be used for technology expenses. UC

Motion by M Koland, second by S Murray, to approve the elementary teaching contract of Brooke Anderson for the remainder of the 24-25 school year. UC

Motion by M Koland, second by K Oliver to approve the contract to purchase .5 FTE of Lee Kobernick’s time from Greenbush-Middle River as Technology Coordinator. UC

Joint Powers Board meeting in Greenbush on Wednesday, February 19 at 5:00 p.m. 

Next Regular School Board Meeting: March 12, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. at Tri-County School Library in Karlstad, MN

Motion by K Oliver, second by K Helling to adjourn. UC

 

Respectfully Submitted,

Mark Koland, Board Clerk

Steve Murray, Board Chair

(March 26, 2025)