School Board Holds Final Meeting Before 2014-15 School Year

Oskaloosa Community School Board

Oskaloosa Community School Board

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Oskaloosa School Board held their final summer meeting before the school year starts. The meeting included the appointments of the remaining certified staff.

After an Oskaloosa Elementary 4th Grade teacher resigned because her spouse took a job out of state, the district set out to fill that position. Joel Ralfson, a UNI graduate, will be taking over that 4th grade classroom for the 2014-15 school year.

At the Oskaloosa High School, Chase Webber, also a UNI graduate, will be teaching physical education.

The Board approved the second reading of Board Policy 401.13. This policy will separate staff and students in regards to the acceptable use policy as it relates to technology, internet usage including social media. The acceptable use policy passed its second and final reading.

The board discussed other options for selling the Building and Trades home. After advertising in traditional avenues, the school has not been presented a bid by a potential buyer of the property. Superintendent Russ Reiter said that other avenues for advertising the home could be explored, such as advertising the property on the school website, other media and social media.

The board approved to advertise and have bids accepted for the Building and Trades home that have a minimum bid of $172,500 until 10 a.m. on October 3rd. Bids can be dropped off to the Greg Life Law Office, who is the District legal council.

The Oskaloosa School Board received the Board, Building, Curriculum Director and Superintendent reports. In the Superintendent report, Oskaloosa Schools Superintendent Russ Reiter spoke about further developing the sister-school relationship with the Chinese school located in the Hebei Province. There may be a formal signing at some point in the future, after further discussion over the pros and cons of the potential agreement.

Public comment had Jon Zobel expressing his concerns about band practice being held outdoors until 9:30 pm. Zobel had spoken with Oskaloosa School Board President Carl Drost about the problem and felt confident arrangements would be made to not disturb the neighborhood so late into the evening. Oskaloosa School Superintendent Russ Reiter did say that arrangements were being made to be finished by 8pm. With that in mind, band instructors had asked if practice could take place behind the school buildings to facilitate later marching band practice schedules. Reiter asked that if that option was used, that someone be placed on the other side of the buildings to help determine if the noise level was still too great.

Reiter added his concern about band practice going past 9pm in regards to being good neighbors to those needing to be asleep. Zobel said that he wanted to be clear, “We weren’t trying to move kids around or try and punish them in any way. It’s pretty late.”

The next scheduled Oskaloosa School Board meeting is September 9th at 7:00 pm in the board room at George Daily Auditorium. This next meeting is the organizational meeting and the board members will elect their officers for the upcoming year.

Posted by on Aug 16 2014. Filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Comments are closed

         

Search Archive

Search by Date
Search by Category
Search with Google
Log in | Copyright by Oskaloosa News