By Elaine Rassel
The MMC Community School District Board of Directors met in regular session on Monday, January 15, 2024, at 6:00 pm in the MMC Commons, along with the RU Community School District Board of Directors. Board members present: Laura Staab, Luke Olson, Belinda Leavitt, Dan Erickson, Kristi Letsche. Also board members present from RU: Loutsch, Harpenau, Tentinger, Penning, but absent: Krier.
Proposed 2024-25 School Calendar
Luke Olson moved to accept the 2024-25 school calendar and seconded by Kristi Letsche.
Staff Resignations/Hires
Dan Erickson moved to approve the resignation of Tyler Rueter as an Elementary Custodian, ending his duties in June. Also, the hiring of Josie Jones- Elementary Paraprofessional. Seconded by Kristi Letsche.
SIAC Committee Member Approval
Belinda Leavitt moved to approve the following members for the MMC SIAC Committee: Ellie Durkee, Adam Roberts, Abby Tentinger, Andy Rupp, Shelly Pick, and Dan Hueser. Dan Erickson seconded.
Belinda Leavitt exited the meeting at 6:45 pm.
Policy Review: Series 100
The MMC board successfully reviewed the 100 series of the board policies.
Opening of Sealed Bids For Generator
Dan Erickson moved to approve the sealed bid of a $555.00 for the generator. Luke Olson seconded.
MMCRU Middle School/Remsen Elementary
Principal’s Report Toby Young
Meeting Date – January 15, 2024
Elementary/Middle School News
TK-8th grade students began FAST testing during the Winter (January 2-January 26) testing window. All TK-8 student will take the FAST assessment 3 times per year (Fall, Winter, Spring). Our instructional coaches will present more information regarding our FAST assessments at our February school board meeting.
Winter SRI – State Report Due on January 26
Middle School – 2nd Quarter Honor Roll: – (15) – Principal’s Honor Roll, (67) – High Honor Roll, (48) – Honor Roll.
Principal’s Honor Roll – 4.0
High Honor Roll – 3.5-3.99
Honor Roll – 3.0-3.49
72% of our Middle School students attained the Honor Roll for 2nd Quarter (Great job!)
Professional Development
Building & District PD days are held typically 2 Wednesday’s a month. PLC collaboration, curriculum updates, and building initiatives have been the main focus. Our TK-4 buildings are collaborating on our CKLA Reading Curriculum and we’ve seen great progress and heard great feedback from our students and staff. We are currently working to finalize our secondary (5-12) science curriculum purchase/plan, this is a board and district goal. This is a big step in creating a cohesive curriculum and PLC structure for our staff which we hope will result in consistent teaching and learning outcomes aligned with state and NGSS standards. We’re already planning for the 2024-2025 school year and want to have a great professional development schedule in place before the end of this school year.
Activities
JH Girls Basketball began on January 3 – 1st game is January 16 @ K-P. 16 girls are participating. 9 (8th) & 7 (7th) Coaches – Colin Youde & Kelli Gleason
JH Wrestling began on January 3 – 1st meet is January 25 @ Hinton. 13 boys are participating – 10 – 8th graders & 3 – 7th graders. Coaches – Nick Dreckman & Derek Erdman
MS Spring Play – 37 cast members & 25 backstage – What Happened After Once Upon a Time. March 22 – 7pm & March 23 – 7pm. Play Director – Cheyenne Olson
Current Openings – Remsen Building – 2023-2024
Part-Time Custodian
Teacher – Substitutes
Paraprofessional – Substitutes
Superintendent’s Report-January 15, 2024
We are planning an open house on February 2 to “show off” our new elementary school/daycare facility in Marcus and also the library and multipurpose gym area. We plan to coincide this event with the home game vs. Le Mars Gehlen that evening.
Construction has continued in Marcus. We are very fortunate to have had mild weather this past month which made it possible to get the parking lot poured so the new elementary/daycare entrance could be used beginning on January 8. Wiltget is finishing up details on the multipurpose gym space and stage area, and they are working quickly on the industrial technology addition. In Remsen, we held the pre bid conference for interested bidders this past Thursday and tonight we had the required public hearing. The actual bid opening is set for January 25, and we will hold a special RU board meeting to award the construction contract on January 29.
The events in Perry two weeks ago once again gives us pause to discuss what we can do to make our buildings and students and staff inside as secure as possible. We have been working all year long on new camera systems along with door access software and hardware for both our campuses. In addition, we continue to commit towards providing adequate mental health counseling for our students in need through our at-risk/dropout funds. We are also in the process of examining once again our crisis plans and our emergency operations plan. There are many issues today that are causing crises with our students. With the legislative session about to begin, I urge you to lobby our legislators to make mental health services and treatment a priority for spending in our state. We have too many students in crisis in our Iowa schools for whom we do not have places available to be sent for inpatient treatment, and consequently, the schools become a holding place for these students. Also, while we are making access more difficult in our buildings, short of making them a prison-like atmosphere, we need to take much more responsibility for making sure all weapons anywhere are locked up so unstable persons in crisis do not have access to them. Without that type of legislation, we will continue to see the tragedies in our nation and now in our state. At the very least, the legislature should fund a School Resource Officer for each school building in Iowa.
Again, Please mark your calendars for January 29, 2024 for a Board Finance Workshop to discuss school district finance and strategy for MMCRU. We plan on beginning that workshop at 5 p.m. on that date. It will be led by Shawn Snyder and Jan Miller-Hook of IASB.
The admin team is in the process of securing bids for a different website provider in order to enhance the image and marketing potential of MMCRU. We have had several online meetings about this already. More information will be provided when we get closer to making a decision.
Tonight we are bringing to the board for approval a listing of individuals to serve on the School Improvement Advisory Committee. By law our districts are required to hold a SIAC meeting once a year, and this year our date for this meeting has been tentatively set for February 29.
The admin team has been meeting to provide leadership for improving science assessment results as well as improved science curriculum enhancements. Our goal is to improve science assessment performance district-wide in this year’s round of ISASP testing.
At the end of our meeting we will go into closed session to touch base with me as to my performance for the MMCRU Schools.
MMCRU Marcus
January Principal Board Report (1/15/2024)
First semester has quickly come to an end and report cards were sent to families on January 3rd. The elementary building has been working to tweak our new MTSS and PBIS systems. For MTSS, we are going to be trying a different cycle so there is not as much switching back and forth between ELA and Math, we will be sticking with one subject for a week and then switching the next week. We have also developed a tiered system of support for our students not meeting behavior expectations, this select group will begin during our Social Emotional Learning time every other Wednesday with Mrs. Hergott.
In the high school, based on last spring’s Conditions of Learning data we have taken some of the PBIS ideas from the elementary and adapted them to the high school. Prior to break we had students identify what being a Royal in the classroom, hallway, commons, and student section looked like. We then took all of their ideas, combined them with our staff list and created a matrix for our high school staff to follow. This work was based on Conditions of Learning date from last spring, we targeted areas of overlap between students, staff, and families that were all in agreement on areas of improvement, we came up with 4 major areas of focus: student to staff respect, student to student respect, consistent enforcement of rules, and letting parents know when students have done a good job.
I released the high school honor roll for 1st Semester and nearly ¾ of our high school received some type of distinction during 1st semester.
8 students were named to the Principal’s Honor Roll (4.0),
82 students were named to the High Honor Roll (3.5 and above), and
56 students were named to the Honor Roll (3.0 and above).

Current Class Numbers
PK 24
TK 10
K 28
1st 29
2nd 21
3rd 29
4th 39
Elementary Total 180 students

9th 56
10th 53
11th 51
12th 49
High School Total
209 students
Foreign Exchange Students 1
Alternative School Students 14
Marcus Total =389 Students

Important Dates Coming Up:
January 24: 2-Hour Early Dismissal for Professional Development
February 6: 3rd Quarter Midterm
February 7: 2-Hour Early Dismissal for Professional Development
February 9: No School-Shared PD in Cherokee
February 19: No School-President’s Day
Current Openings in Marcus:
Elementary Paraprofessional
3 Bus Drivers
Brandon Weisert
MMCRU-Marcus Principal
Adjourn
Kristi Letsche moved to adjourn the meeting at 7:55 pm. Dan Erickson seconded.