More on this in the Superintendent’s report.
As MMCRU is temporarily without a regular board secretary, the October meeting was rather short. Joe Mohning was Interim Board Secretary for the meeting.
The MMC Board approved the SBRC request for Allowable Growth for the Special Education Deficit for $134,060.85.
Chelsea Ruden was approved as Board Secretary/Accounts Payable/Human Resources and will be at work in this position on October 24.
Head Archery Coach, Ben Aberson was approved as was Lonnie Boekhout, High School Athletic Director.
The TAG Purchase on the agenda was a R-U item.
Early graduation requests were approved, but I did not hear who they were.
Bus #4 will have a new owner as Tyler Rueter’s bid in the amount of $800 was approved. There were two bids for this bus.
Toby Young MMCRU Middle School/Remsen Elementary Principal reported the following: The end of the 1st Quarter is Friday, October 21. The school year has gone very well and I appreciate all the work our staff and students have put in to make it such a great start.
Jr. Football & CC (Cross Country) have come to an end with all programs showing growth throughout the season. The Volleyball team will conclude their season on Tuesday, October 18 at K-P. Thank you to out athletes and coaches for all their hard work. JH Boys basketball practice will begin on Monday, October 17 with their first game on Monday, November 7.
FAST Testing (TK- Grade 8)—Fall Testing window results (Reading & Math) will be shared at the November board meeting. Our building and district PD’s continue to focus on CKLA, PBIS, MTSS, PL’s and curriculum alignment.
Our Remsen building applied and received two grants from the Plymouth County Foundation. One grant is for $5,000 for our weight room/fitness center. The second grant is for $7,000 for our backpack program to provide food for students/families in need.
PS-Grade 8 Enrollment—Certified enrollment was submitted on October 14. I will present our Fall Certified enrollment data at our November meeting.
Upcoming Elementary/Middle School Events: JH Boys’ Basketball Practice begins—Oct. 17. JH VB at KP—October 21. District Professional Development—Oct. 26–2 hour early dismissal. Parent/Teacher Conferences—Nov. 1 and Nov. 3—with 2 hour early dismissal (4 p.m.-8 p.m. each day for conferences). NO SCHOOL—Nov. 4 (Teacher Comp Day).
Upcoming State Reports/Events—Preschool Desk Audit—Due December 15 and Universal Desk Audit—Due December 15
Current Openings at Remsen—Substitute Teacher’s and Substitute Paraprofessional’s.
Brandon Weisert, PK through Grade 4 and Grades 9-12 Principal reported the following: This year for conferences on November 1 and 3, I am planning to roll out an online conference sign -up using Signup Genius at the High School. I will send the signup links out through JMC and Facebook, this week and again the following week. Teachers have been asked to also send conference invitations to families that they would like a chance to meet with. At the elementary level, we have begun looking at streamlining our report cards to have the same reporting key and look across grade levels at both levels.
During the past month, I have been working on state reporting. I have completed the MMC Certified Enrollment and SRI. Now that Certified Enrollment is wrapped up, I will begin working on our Desk Audits for Preschool and K-12 with Mr. Young and our preschool teachers.
We have had some challenging weeks with staff absences but we have been fortunate with our substitute teacher pool thus far to be able to cover the majority of our absences with substitutes and have been able to minimize the amount of covering classes with teachers on their prep or combining classes together. Overall student attendance is holding pretty consistently and that is showing in our weekly grade checks as that number on the list continues to fall each week. First quarter is coming to an end on Friday with report cards being sent out early next week.
This past week we have begun wrapping up our fall sports. Cross Country had their War Eagle Conference meet with Kaden Galles (2nd), Lucas Braun (7th), Owen Alesch (12th), and Audrey Etter (4th) earning all-conference recognition. We also honored our seniors in Volleyball, Football, Cross Conference, Cheer, and Band. Regional Volleyball begins at 7:00 tonight and Football picked up a week 9 game at Lawton-Bronson. A group of our special education students went to Sioux City to participate in bowling for special olympics.
Important Dates: October 17: Regional Volleyball v. West Sioux at Marcus; October 21 is End of First Quarter; October 25: Fall High School Concert (Band and Choir); October 26 is 2 Hour Early dismissal (District Professional Development)
November 1 & 3: 2 Hour Early Out & Parent-Teacher Conferences (4-8 p.m.); November 1 is Picture Retakes. November 4: NO SCHOOL (Teacher Comp. Day); November 9 is 2 Hour Early Dismissal (Building Professional Development).
November 11 is Veterans Day Assembly in Remsen and November 18: 2nd Quarter Midterm.
There are NO current openings in Marcus.
Superintendent’s report—Assuming she is approved by the MMC Board, Chelsea Ruden will be joining us as our new shared Board Secretary/HR staff member on October 24. We are excited about what she will bring to our team!
Construction at the Marcus site continues. The lack of structural steel still hampers progress. I appreciated the good attitudes that people have had with navigating around construction at Marcus this year. (Goal A)
MMC Board: You will notice tonight’s hires and resignations that Lonnie Boekhout’s name is listed for high school athletic director. Lonnie has been away from his AD duties for the past 4 months and now we are re-hiring Lonnie to serve as our high school AD. This allows him to collect his IPERS pension. Lonnie provides to us many services that we often take for granted at the high school, as well as a wealth of experience. He is a good value for us at MMCRU in terms of his AD work, and also with all the activity driving he does to many events and also his work on the grounds at the Marcus site.
The War Eagle Conference (WEC) has voted to admit the George-Little Rock (GLR) to the conference. Currently the Siouxland Conference is considering the possible admission of Unity Christian to their conference. If the Siouxland Conference votes to admit Unity, the WEC athletic directors will schedule GLR games in place of games with Unity. We should know by the end of this month whether the Siouxland Conference will admit Unity. This year I am currently the chair of the WEC, and I have been leading meetings with the other WEC superintendents regarding these changes.
On October 20, the RU Building Committee will be discussing building updates at the Remsen site including a proposed update to the RU Auditorium. CMBA has estimated that the improvements to the Remsen Auditorium would cost approximately $350,000. The building committee is working to tie the auditorium project together with other updates that are needed in the building, particularly locker rooms and bathrooms. When the building committee has finalized the direction of the project, cost opinions will be obtained, and a proposal will be brought to the RU board (Goal A).
Tonight’s agenda is relatively light by design, since we’re temporarily without a regular board secretary.
Again, board members, please reserve Monday, November 7 at 6 p .m. in your calendars for a board workshop led by Lou Ann Avist of the IASB. Since last year’s workshop was held in Marcus, we will meet in Remsen for this years’ workshop. (Goal E)
Now that we will soon have a new HR person in place (Chelsea Ruden), the MMCRU Marketing Committee will be meeting on November 1 to develop plans for marketing MMCRU as well as gleaning ideas to attract and retain instructional talent at MMCRU. (Goals C & D).
The principals and curriculum director Cait Dreckman met on October 7 to discuss the direction we are proposing going in regards to curriculum updates now that we have rolled out the new CKLA curriculum. In a future board meeting, perhaps as early as November, I will invite Cait to present ideas to the board to gather feedback and give information regarding where MMCRU is at in this process. (Goal B).
On Monday morning, Oct.17, as chair of the Region 4 RPP (Regional Planning Partnership) Executive Committee, I led a meeting to review and approve FY23 RPP requests and prepare for the full RPP meeting to be held later this month. The RPP is a consortium of schools in northwest Iowa that determine the amounts of funding that are allocated to school districts from the state and federal government for CTE (Career-Technical Education) programs through state and federal dollars.
The Back-Pack Program has been taken over by Siouxland Food Bank. They will bring the 45 back-packs already to go directly to the school. A date will be determined when this will happen.
The MMC Board met in regular joint session on Monday, October 17, 2022, at 6:30 p.m. in Mr. Wimmer’s room along with the R-U School Board.
MMC Board members present were Leavitt, Prunty, Olson, Staab and Dreckman. Absent: No one.
R-U Board members present were Loutsch, Krier, Tentinger and later, Harpenau. Absent was Pence.