By Elaine Rassel
The MMCRU School District had a 6:30 a.m. meeting. Steve Liddle handed in his resignation for bus driver for MMC and RU. He has driven for 28 years along with a lawncare business (41 years); he decided it was time to fully retire and enjoy time with family and friends. His resignation was approved as was the hiring of Tessa Hansen.
Technology purchases for MMC were approved. The MMCRU Employee Handbook (2021-2022) had 12 pages of the policies and procedures of the MMCRU District and is to inform employees concerning a number of policies for the work environment. The updates were approved.
MMC Board approved transferring of funds from State Savings Bank to United Bank. Funds were $465,185.46.
Now that transferring of funds were approved, a creation of a new account at United Bank of Iowa for the new partially self-funded health insurance plan with Eagle Ridge Corporate Services and Neil Bartholomew as an approved company and sign was approved by the MMC Board.
The MMC Board moved to approve the Trane Service Agreement. Details on this is in September 15 report.
MMC Board approved the Industrial Technology CNC Mill. Jr. High Wrestling Agreement and the kitchen freezer were RU’s item.
MMCRU Middle School/Remsen Elementary Principal Report
The 2020-2021 school year has officially come to an end. The school year had many changes throughout and I want to thank our staff, students and families for all their work and patience. Overall it was a very successful school year and I’m so thankful we were able to have have in-person learning the entire school year. Currently our custodial staff is working to clean our elementary/middle school classrooms and buildings to prepare for the upcoming school year. The first day of school will be Monday, August 23.
72% of our middle school students attained honor roll status for 2nd semester.
2020-2021 ISASP/Dashboard information will be presented at our July school board meeting.
Projected Numbers for 2021-2022 School Year are as follows: PS-14; TK-20 (2 sections); K-20; 1st grade-23; 2nd grade-21; 3rd grade-25 (2 sections); 4th grade-13; 5th grade-33; 6th grade-47; 7th grade-51; 8th grade-51 for a total of 318.
Elementary/Middle School News
Extended School Year-Currently ongoing (6 students)
Summer Reading Program-Begins June 21 (23 students)
State Report-SRI and Spring BEDS-Both have been submitted
2021-2022 School Registration-July 20-7am-4pm and July 21-12pm-7pm (Online Registration is also available)
Job Openings-2021-2022-Remsen Site
MS SPED Teacher
JH Track Coach
Paraprofessionals-6(4-1:1’s)
MMCRU Marcus Elementary MMCRU High School June Principal Board Report
The MMCRU Marcus Elementary and MMCRU High School completed their school year on Thursday, May 27. High School grades were submitted and sent to students and parents on the following Friday. 17 students earned Principal’s Honor Roll (4.0) recognition, 54 earned High Honor Roll (3.5 and higher) recognition, and 28 earned Honor Roll (3.0 and higher) recognition for 4th quarter. For 2nd semester, 18 earned Principal’s Honor Roll, 57 earned High Honor Roll, and 31 for Honor Roll. 59.6% of high school students attained some honor roll status during 4th quarter and 63.9% of high school students attained some honor roll status for 2nd semester.
Due to our grades being sent on Friday, May 28 all students are eligible for extracurricular activities in the summer and fall per Governor Reynolds’ proclamations. High school baseball and softball is in full swing with over half the season completed.
Drivers’ Education has and is being conducted by Rockie Bork and Kyle Oswald. It will be completed by the end of June.
Several documents have been submitted to the Iowa Department of Education over the past several weeks. These include Spring BEDS, Spring SRI, SCTREA, and CLNA. All of these documents are important in terms of funding and adherence to state/federal law.
In terms of planning for next year, Principal Young and I, along with TLC, are looking at professional development options and timelines. In addition, I am preparing to shift to next year’s JMC program.
Current Openings in Marcus: Home School Assistance Programs Coordinator, High School Science, and 4 or 5 1:1 High School Paraprofessionals.
Travis Sprague
PK-4, 9-12 Principal
MMCRU Marcus Elementary and MMCRU High School
Superintendent’s Report
The summer is here, and so the preparation begins for the upcoming school year. We have been updating handbooks and getting organized for the next school year. Next year will be about getting back to normal after the pandemic. One thing that will be “back to the future” will be the use of virtual snow days. Although a bill was introduced in the Iowa Senate to allow virtual snow days, it did not pass, and so, next year we will be doing snow days the old fashioned way, and may need to make up days lost due to inclement weather.
We still have a lot of openings for paras for next year. If you know of anyone who may be looking for a job that would be a good fit for this position, please let us know. Like many businesses, we also are facing a shortage of labor that we hope will change as we get closer to the beginning of the school year.
The gym HVAC project is going well at MMC, although some asbestos was found that was not on our report that will need to be removed. We had hoped to have the RU board consider a bid from Langel’s for replacement of the heating units in the classrooms. But the bid came too high for us to be able to do it without an engineer. So, we will need to start over and hire EDA from Sioux Center to take the lead on the projects at RU. They are very much backed up with other ESSER-related projects, so no new HVAC activity can take place likely until next summer.
We are asking MMC board to approve a renewal form Trane of their service agreement. It is a spendy item, but because of all the problems we have had with HVAC in our old buildings at MMC, we feel we need it to keep things going for another year or two, at least until our facilities are improved.
The process continues on the design phase of the building project at MMC. On our last contracted day with teachers, the elementary staff worked with our architects on refining a plan for the new elementary school. Simultaneously, in the morning of May 28, our high school staff took a tour of the new Sioux Center High School to gather ideas for our high school remodel. Afterwards, the high school staff visited with the architects from CMBA to discuss ideas for the remodel of the high school.
In the world of welding, the governing body for welding certification, standards, and practices is the American Welding Society. This is the organization that certifies people when they attend college welding programs etc. Matt Hanson received notice that he was selected as the Howard E. Adkins Welding Instructor Award for welding education excellence out of all high school and AWS annual conference where he will receive the award from the national president of AWS and will now be in the running for National Welding Educator of the Year.
Because of the time of day, we are trying to keep this meeting short and to the point. Our principals will do their lengthy dashboard reports in July. However, for those who have time to stick around this morning, we would like to debut our new promotional video for you to see. We plan to post it on our website, social media pages, and other outlets that may benefit enrollment.