4.1 - Chad Williams has been exploring the options available for Belle Plaine special needs students to participate in co-curricular activities.  He has approached the New Prague district about the possibility of pairing with them for adaptive sports programs such as floor hockey and softball.  Mr. Williams will be available at the meeting to discuss the the benefits of these programs along with the potential costs to our district.

4.2 - Board Control of Student Activity Accounts:  Currently our student activity accounts are not under board control.  We process all transactions of the organizations through our finance system, but the funds are technically separated from board authority.  This does create some extra work at audit time and in an effort to help streamline the audit process, administration is recommending that activity accounts be placed under board authority.
What will this change within our current practice?  Not very much.
Students and advisors will continue to control their funds and remain responsible for validating revenue and expenditures within the fund with the appropriate record keeping.  School board members will see one more list of bills for approval at the official board meeting each month (the list will be a completely separate list to make it clear that these are activity fund transactions.  Auditors will not be required to go into so much detail in their analysis of the books as the school board will already have reviewed bills and given the transactions their approval.
It is recommended that this change would be effective July 1, 2014

4.3 - MSHSL Grant Proposal:  Each year Ms. Sparby requests that a grant proposal be submitted to the MSHSL for our district's share of MSHSL annual proceeds.  The dollars received from this proposal are used to help assist students/families with payment of activity fees.  A copy of the proposal is attached for your review.

With the purchase of additional land near the future high school site, we now have approximately 73 acres that we can rent out.  We currently rent our 33 acres to Roger Stier and the land we purchased from Robert Engstrom Companies is rented out to Leo Anderly.  I believe that in the future it would be best to move all land under one rental agreement if possible and would like the board's direction in this matter.
I have talked to our Agriculture Department about the possibility of them taking over the farming operations with the understanding that we develop a cost and revenue sharing system for the property.  At this time, they are not interested in pursuing this but may be interested in it in the future.

I would also like to have a discussion about looking at the costs of a site survey of our property that would include a review by an architectural firm about a possible layout/location of facilities and fields on the property in the future.

Finally, we have been contacted by Bob Denny of Belle Plaine with a proposal to solicit donations of money, time and labor for the construction of a permanent restroom facility at the football/track/tennis complex.  I would like to discuss possible plans for this project with the board.

The administrative team has reviewed Vision Card B and has made some recommendations to streamline the information and reporting for this card.  A copy of our current Card and the revised Card are attached for your review.  The results for Vision Card B are typically reviewed in January or February.

In a typical school year, our high school counselor is on the job for several days before the "official" school year begins as she helps students sort through class schedules in an effort to get the new year off to a smooth start.  Six years ago, this position had 5 additional days on her contract, but those days were removed during budget reductions in '07.  Administration recommends that the high school counselor have an extended contract of 5 days beginning in 2014-15 and that the JH social worker has an extended contract of 2 days beginning in 2014-15.  Estimated cost of the additional days is $2,300.

Each year, all districts in Minnesota are required to submit an Assurance of Compliance resolution to the MDE to verify that we are operating in compliance with state and federal mandates.  I have attached a copy of the resolution form that MDE requires.  In addition, there is an online component that must be filled out by the Superintendent of each district.  This information needs to be submitted to MDE by 11/15 of each year.

We will review the following policy revisions that have been recommended by MSBA.  The five policies to be reviewed are:  515 - Protection & Privacy of Pupil Records;  518 - DNR-DNI Orders;  520 - Student Surveys;  524 - Internet Acceptable Use & Safety; and 525 - Violence Prevention.  I have attached copies of the current district policy and the revised version recommended by MSBA.  Let me know if you have any questions regarding these changes.

Monday, Oct. 14   -   6:00 School Board Work Session
Monday, Oct. 21   -   6:30 Meet & Greet School Board Candidates
                                 7:00  Candidate Forum
Monday, Oct. 28 -     5:30 Finance Committee Mtg.
                                  6:00 Regular Board Mtg.
Tuesday, Nov. 5 -      7:00 a.m. to 8 p.m.  School Board Election