School board beefs up kindergarten staff
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
POLSON — With a large kindergarten class of 133 students, the Polson School Board of Trustees was faced with a choice of hiring another teacher or three paraprofessionals. For each student over 20 per classroom, a paraprofessional needs to be in room for one and a half hours according to the Montana Office of Public Instruction. More than 24 students is considered overload. The board chose to hire paraprofessionals at the Oct. 10 meeting.
In other business, Trustee Kelly Bagnell presented some school district goals hashed out by Bagnell, Chair Caryl Cox and Nancy Lindsey during a seven-hour work session, Bagnell said.
Trustee Lindsey spoke about revising board policy 1070 on board procedure. After lots of discussion and a phone consultation with an attorney, the trustees passed a motion to retain all audio/video tapes of meetings until board policy 1070 is revised.
Trustee Lindsey said changes to 1070 she would like to see made were the chair recognizing groups, a motion being passed when a majority of the votes cast are in favor, and an attempt “to simultaneously reduce the amount of work that goes into producing minutes and bringing it into the contemporary mode” by using a recording of the meeting to stand as the official record.
In other business, negotiations are ongoing for employee contracts with the Polson Education Association, Polson Classified Education Association and non-represented employees.
During public comments Trustee Bob Ricketts read a letter asking for a written apology from Superintendent David Whitesell regarding the Sept. 26 meeting.
The trustees also approved one student for out-of-district enrollment, the personal report, warrants and claims and a trustees surplus sale.
A special meeting will be held on Oct. 18 at 5:30 p.m. in the district conference room. On the agenda are district and superintendent goals plus a future work session item of consideration.
The next regularly scheduled meeting will be Nov. 14 at 5:30 p.m. in the district conference room.
