By Elaine Rassel
The MMC and RU Boards met at 6 p.m. Monday, February 21, 2022 (prior to their regular Board meeting) with a Board Workshop led by Lou Ann Gvist, IASB Board Development Director at Marcus in the MMCRU Commons. This Workshop was for veteran board members as well as new ones. It is given to make our boards more professional and more effective at meeting the needs of our students from a policy level.
Not for sure what time this would be over with and hearing the weather report of icy conditions (that there was shortly after 7 p.m.), I decided not to attend. I will report on what I did have knowledge to.
The Audit Presentations report was on this month’s agenda. Auditors are required by Iowa Code to give an accounting of each district’s finances each year.
Bargaining proposals from Certified & Classified Association were given. After the regular meeting adjourned, the Boards went into exempt session for bargaining strategy.
Cait Dreckman, MMCRU Curriculum Director, spoke to the Boards on the new elementary reading curriculum.
The SIAC (School Improvement Advisory Committee) met on Thursday, February 10 with Dan Barkel and presented some good information. Those on this Committee include Ellie Hillbrands, Wendy Hauschildt, Tyler Prunty, Laurie Tentinger, Jeremy Ahlers, and Erica Pepper. Keegan Stevens and Chad Alesch did not attend.
Staff resignations included Kyle Oswald from Drivers Education; Benjamin O’Ram from Strat II Special Education Instructor at MMCRU High School, Amanda Lynch as high school science teacher and National Honor Society sponsor; Jessica Cave as paraprofessional at MMCRU Elementary; and Ellen Plagman as cook.
The Principals’ and Superintendent Reports follow.
MMCRU Middle School/Remsen Elementary Principal Toby Young’s report is as follows: TK through Grade 8’s FAST Testing has been completed. We’ve pasted the midway point of the 3Q, with things moving along quite nicely. Our teachers attended Cherokee on the morning of Friday, February 11 for a PD opportunity featuring Joe Sanfelippo. Teachers from Cherokee, HMS and South O’Brian were also in attendance. The morning was very well received by our staff and we brought back what we learned/heard in the morning and applied that to our PD in the afternoon.
I again want to thank our staff/district for their continued work each day as they do their very best to make MMCRU a great school!
JH (Junior High) Girls’ Basketball has one week left in the season. Both 7th and 8th grade are working hard and showing improvement each game.
JH Wrestling has 2 weeks left in the season. Our wrestlers have done a great job this season. Our sharing opportunity with Cherokee has gone very well. Our boys and their parents have made only positive comments about the sharing experience. Cherokee and their coaches have been great to work with.
He also had 2021-2022 Dashboard for MMCRU Remsen Elementary & Middle School included in his report.
For FAST assessments The K-1st grade complete the EarlyReading Assessment. The components of the assessment vary by grade and testing window.
Kindergarten Early Reading Assessments are (Fall) concepts of print, onset sounds, letter names, and letter sounds.
1st grade Early Reading Assessments (Fall) word segmenting, nonsense words, sight words, and sentence reading. (Winter 7 Spring) word segmenting, nonsense words, sight words, and CMB reading (fluency-read a passage for one minute.)
2nd-8th grade Complete the CBM reading for each testing window. This is where students read 3 different passages for one minute. It then averages the words per minute and the percent of accuracy for each student.
Reading is not required but will be offered starting during the winter assessment window. With this assessment, students are tested more over comprehension to find the student’s reading level.
The following information is for 2021-2022. Percentages for years 2016-2020 were also given to compare to 2021-2022.
Percentage of Students in Attendance for grades K-4 is 98.03. Percentage of Students in Attendance (Grades 5-8) is 95.81%.
Extracurricular Involvement in Athletics for Grades 7-8 are: Percent of Involvement in Football is 62%. Cross Country is 8%; Volleyball is 55%; Wrestling is 26%; Girls Basketball is 43%; Boys Basketball is 43% and Boys Track and Girls Track have not signed up yet.
Electives for Grades 5-8 in Choir is 43% involvement; Band is 46% involvement; and Student Council is 19% involvement
Areas of focus for the 2022-2023 year is: FAST where all TK-Grade 8 students will be assessed 3 times a year (Fall, Winter, Spring) in both Reading & Math.
MTSS Built into the Middle School Master Schedule 9(020-2021) School Year. MTSS (Multi-Tier-System of Supports). We will build a similar schedule into our Elementary (TK-4) for the 2022-2023 school year. MTSS is a framework that many schools use to provide targeted support to struggling students. It screens all kids and aims to address behavioral as well academic issues. This intervention time has be4n instrumental in providing the support our students need during the school day that has led to increased academic scores and fewer behavior incidents. We will be making a few adjustments to this intervention time, but wil continue to provide this opportunity and support each year.
PBIS Our PS-8 building is currently in our 3rd year of implementing PBIS and have seen significant improvement in our student/student, teacher/teacher and teacher to student relationships. PBIS has impacted the culture and climate of our school building and we have seen gradual growth in academic success/test score.
Elementary Reading Curriculum New TK-Grade 4 Reading Curriculum for the 2022-2023 school year.
ISASP, FAST & District Assessments_Data will be used to drive our PD and curriculum throughout the year.
Upcoming Events for Remsen School are Feb. 28_JH Wrestling @ Aurelia; March 1_NAEP Assessment for all 8th grade students and also JH Wrestling @ Spencer; March 3_2022-2023 Preschool Parent Meeting; March 8_Middle School/High School Band Pops Concert at 7 p.m. at Marcus; March 9_1:25 dismissal for PD; March 10_Middle School/High School vocal Pops Concert at 7 p.m. in Remsen; March 14_End of the 3rd Quarter; and March 21_MMCRU School Board Meeting (6:30 p.m. at Remsen).
Current Openings at Remsen include Paraprofessional Substitutes and Teacher Substitutes.
Travis Sprague, MMCRU Elementary and MMCRU High School Principal reported the following: The MMCRU Marcus Elementary and MMCRU High School have just passed 3rd quarter midterm.
During the week of February 7, we celebrated Skills USA week. The Skills students made the faculty breakfast on Monday. On Tuesday, the students helped clean the school to support our custodians. On Wednesday, Adam Thomas and Dave Freese, of RJ Thomas, talked to the students on success and leadership strategies. On Thursday, our students went to Remsen and worked with the 8th graders on a variety of mini-projects. On Saturday, the Skills USA members attended a Musketeers hockey game. In addition, several of our Skills USA members went to the capitol for CTE Day. They met with Governor Reynolds, Lt. Governor Gregg, and countless local legislators.
FFA Week will be February 21-25. Many activities are planned including a “kiss the Pig/Kid” can drive, tractor day, coloring contest in our elementaries, a “where in the world is Kyle” activity in the middle school, and numerous activities in the high school. Our FFA students also attended a legislative symposium in Des Moines. They met with legislators and learned about policy, committee assignments, and the overall legislative process.
Our staff completed ISASP training during professional development. Dr. Joe Sanfelippo spoke to us on how we can all be leaders and how to implement that in our classrooms and in our buildings.
I would like to recognize the MMCRU Large Group Speech Team on their performances at districts and state. Five of the six groups earned a “I” at district and advanced to state. Two groups earned “I’s” at state: Short Film (Straight 1’s), Ensemble Acting (Split II’s), both TV News (Split II’s). Individual speech has begun.
At the time of this writing, our girls basketball team finished the regular season at 20-1 (2nd in the War Eagle). The girls will play on Friday in the 3rd round of districts in Marcus (vs. Akron-Westfield). If they win, they play on Wednesday at a neutral site. Both games would start at 7 p.m. The boys basketball team finished up their regular season Monday. The boys bowling team qualified for State. In addition, Bryce Staab and Breanna Staab qualified as individual bowlers for State.
Important Dates coming up include: Feb. 28-March 4 is Dr. Seuss Week; March 5 is State Individual Speech; March 8 is Band Pops Concert at Marcus; March 9 is 2 hour early out for PD and Blood Drive; March 10 is Vocal Pops Concert at Remsen; March 11 is Dance Night; March 14 is End of 3rd Quarter; March 15 is NHS (National Honor Society) Induction and March 19 is Foundation Dinner.
Current Openings in Marcus: High School Paraprofessional ; Elementary paraprofessional; Substitute Teachers/Paraprofessionals; 2 High School Science Teachers for 2022-2023 School Year; Elementary or High School Special Education Teacher for 2022-2023 School Year; Elementary Teacher for 2022-2023 School Year and NHS Advisor for 2022-2023 School Year.
Superintendent Barkel reported the following: The design phase of the MMC building improvements project is complete. The plans have gone out to various contractors who have an interest in bidding on the project. On March 4 at 2 p.m., there will be a meeting to open sealed bids for the project. Earlier today, there was a pre-bid meeting for potential contractors/bidders from 9 a.m. to noon.
The RU projects are on hold until we know the result of the Revenue Purpose statement election on March 1. In order to finance the entire project at RU it will be necessary to pass a Revenue purpose statement (RPS) during a special election in March, which would allow the RU district to access the one-cent sales tax monies an additional 20 years through 2049. If the election fails at RU, we will need to pare down the project to only cover what we can afford using the ESSER (Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief Fund) funds. RPS elections will take place in both districts on March 1. Encourage supporters of MMC and RU to get out and vote. We need at least 50% + 1 to pass the RPS. It will also be important for the future of the MMC district as we are faced with the specter of increased building costs since the pandemic.
Thank you for participating in the board workshop led tonight by Lou Ann Gvist, Board development Director of the Iowa Association of school Boards. Even though these workshops take time, our participation in workshops and conventions led by IASB only makes our boards more professional and more effective at meeting the needs of our students from a policy level.
The SIAC meeting on February 10 went well. They provided some good feedback which we have shared in the packet. Thank you for providing the names of individuals to serve on this committee. They did a great job!
We have heard the opening bargaining proposal from the RU and MMC associations. Following the adjournment, we will have an exempt session to discuss bargaining strategy for both districts. It will be a difficult year with negotiations this year with Supplemental State Aid (SSA) from the legislature only increasing at 2.5% and the inflation rate nearing 7.5% in January.
Cait Dreckman, MMCRU Curriculum Director, gave the recommendation for the new elementary reading curriculum at our meeting tonight. This is nearing the end of an arduous, but very important process. There’s probably no other skill as necessary as learning to read for our students. The skill of reading has lifelong benefits.
The annual auditor’s report took place on this month’s agenda. By Iowa Code we must have the auditors give one accounting of each district’s finances each year. Joe Mohning, together with Jill Alesch do an excellent job at managing both district’s finances. We are fortunate to have both Joe and Jill on our team in the roles that they play.
I appreciate the work that our board members do each month in their role as board members at both RU and MMC. It is imperative that we remain united as separate boards working together to provide the absolute best educational experience for our young people. Our kids love being Royals! We have come a long way in the past 6 years, and the future of MMCRU looks very bright and exciting! Go Royals!

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