WELLMAN

There’s a new board in town, and they’re shaking things up.

Mid-Prairie’s new school board was present in full for the first time at their regular meeting on Dec. 11, and new board president Jake Snider started proceedings with a new formality. Rather than reading the district’s mission statement, as had previously been the custom, he had the room stand and cite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sparce board action took place after a presentation by the school’s FFA members and a proposal made during public forum for a new club that has some money behind it.

FFA students told the board about their October trip to the 96th Annual National FFA Convention in Indianapolis. While showing slides, the five students talked through the highlights of their trip, which included meeting other FFA students from around the country, learning more about career paths open to them, and listening to speakers. They also visited swine and dairy farms, the zoo, and did a dolphin meet and greet.

“What do you now know about dolphins that you didn’t know before?” FFA advisor Elsa Schmidt prompted the group.

“They’re not squishy,” Charlotte Sieren, FFA reporter, said, eliciting chuckles.

Mid-Prairie’s FFA chapter has about 65 in-school members.

Public Forum

Jeremy Statler, owner of Statler Construction in Kalona, was the sole member of the public to speak during public forum this week. A 1990 Mid-Prairie graduate, “I love this community and I want to help wherever I can,” he told the board. He then explained that he contacted Industrial Technology teacher Lucas Troyer and asked him if there are tools he could help provide, and Troyer provided him a list.

It was “a little more than I was thinking,” Statler said, “But it is something that I believe in, and I want to help out on that.”

The list included “basic stuff” like tape measures, files, and a bandsaw.

Statler said he proceeded to ask around, trying to raise funds to purchase the tools. By Monday night, he had collected $8,350, which is “coming straight to Mid-Prairie and earmarked for the Industrial Tech program.”

This is the start, he hopes, of the Golden Hawk Future Builders Club, the aim of which would be to introduce students to “how many possibilities there are in the trades” and encourage them to pursue them as careers.

“If we can impact a kid or two, if we can keep them in our community to help out rather than go out to who knows where, that’s only going to benefit us all,” Statler said.

At the end of the business meeting, board members expressed interest in what Statler was proposing, although they could not take any action as it was not an agenda item.

“I think it would be hugely beneficial,” board member Ryan Schlabaugh said.

“There’s a lot of good ideas in the community and at the table,” Snider said. “The problem that we run into is, how do we get that into [our] education? Get it into the building, get it implemented? How do we bridge that gap, make that happen?. . . It’s going to take a real team-approach between the community and staff.”

Follow Up

During the Public Forum at the board’s last meeting on Nov. 27, parents raised concerns about issues in special education. In her written report to the to the board, Special Education Director Amy Shalla wrote that Special Education teachers are “working on a survey to gain their perspective and ideas” related to these issues.

Board Action

The board discussed incentives for licensed staff to provide notice of resignation early in the year so that the district has sufficient time to find staff to replace them by the following school year. The board approved financial incentives the same as last year: $2,000 for resignation notices received by the third Friday in February and $1,000 for those received by the third Friday in March.

As more schools are recruiting earlier in the year, the board agreed to consider moving the incentive dates up two weeks at a future meeting.

Tad Morrow from Carl A Neslon and Vicki Hyland from OPN Architects reviewed a letter of intent from OPN, which outlined the scope, plan, and costs for upcoming construction projects in the district. While it is not a formal contract, it “covers everything that we’ve talked about,” and its acceptance would allow the builders to “get some work started” early in the year, Morrow said.

The board approved the letter.

Moving Forward

Before closing the meeting, the board discussed possibilities for board development. Superintendent Brian Stone said that there is an interest in restructuring board meetings so that there is room for more productive conversation and relationship building.

“The way that our agenda is set up now, it’s just challenging,” he said.

“We’re all looking for a reason, we all have different points of view. When you can smash those together on a table and strain out everything, what comes out of that is going to be fantastic,” Snider agreed. “But we have to facilitate those opportunities.”

The Mid-Prairie Board of Education will next meet on Jan. 8 at 6:15 p.m. at the Central Office.