Superintendent of Schools position offered to Burgess

The Clearbrook-Gonvick school board at their regular monthly meeting on Monday, March 19 offered the position of Superintendent of Schools to Jeff Burgess. The board had narrowed their candidates down to do the interviews of the applicants that had applied. On Thursday, March 15 they interviewed Bruce Houck and Jeff Burgess. The public left after the last interview and board members discussed the two that had been interviewed. Burgess has been the principal serving the Clearbrook-Gonvick District. After the meeting on Monday, the board closed the meeting to discuss with Burgess terms and whether he would take the position.

Environmental Services Director, Dan Hecht informed the school board of a resolution from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for a grant application which was applied for jointly by the Clearbrook-Gonvick School and the Bagley Schools under its FY'17 Environmental Assistance Grant. Adoption of the resolution for the application was approved by the Clearwater County Commissioners at their last meeting, with Commissioner Illies abstaining. The grant project was to implement a recyclables collection system in all three Clearwater County schools, to include compacting machines for efficient storage and transportation of the mixed recyclables. Three schools are Bagley Elementary, Bagley High School and Clearbrook-Gonvick site. The school would have to spend approximately $4,500 for a fence around the machine and wiring that would have to be done. There would be in-kind work for staff and students. The majority of the project cost is for equipment and recycling bins, to be covered by the grant dollars if awarded.  Hecht stated that in three years the project would be revenue neutral or save money for the district. Student Program groups can help with the recycle from the classrooms. Concern was who would be able to fix it if something went wrong. 

Sarah Goudge gave the slide presentation on the Spotlight on Education. The show included what was going on in several of the classes the past month. The building trades class is busy building a deer stand for the Gully Sportsmens Club. There will be an art exhibit at the Fire Side in Bagley for K-12 students. The artist reception will be held on April 20. They are looking for judges.

Principals report

Principal Jeff Burgess informed the board that testing starts April 9th. They are encouraging everyone to try their best. They are looking for a 4% increase in the reading scores.

The scheduling for next years’ classes with the seniors has been done. They want to make sure they get all their classes to be able to graduate. He is still making some slight adjustments to the schedule based upon priorities.

There has been a meeting with the elementary teachers on the class size rate that would seem comfortable for the classrooms. They are K-1, 12 to 18; 2-3, 14-20 and 4-6, 16 to 22.  They will still be looking at the morst important and what the enrollment is.

Superintendents report

Superintendent Wayne Olson brought up items that were going on at the state level including Special Ed, School Safety, TRA solution and increase funding for Pre-K readiness.

Pre-School Screening is finished. They are 16 pre-school students for next year. Mrs. Churness will be at next months meeting to discuss. 

Hiring process guidelines for the district was approved.

ICS contract

The board approved the ICS contract for the classroom additions that are being looked at. The company specializes in providing customized planning and project-related consulting, management and owner representation services for the planning, funding, design, construction and ongoing facility operations. Cost for the first phase is $2,000 and they would do some listening sessions and a community survey and bring back the results to the board. If the community wants to go ahead an additional $3,940 would be paid for the planning of the new addition. No voting would be done on the project only public input.

Bills, electronic transfers and other banking transactions were approved. Some bills included: Stein’s Bus Service LLC $77,826.66; IRS $52,399.47; Community Oil Co. $9,115.86; Clearwater-Polk Electric $8,015.57; BRIC $7,706.81; Marco $6,596.34; Thompson Sand and Gravel $2,970.00; City of Clearbrook $2,399.47; Bemidji State University $2,200.00; Anderson Disposal $1,809.70; Garden Valley Telephone Co. $1,787.22; Hillyard/Hutchinson $1,651.54; Amy Mulry $1,200