MLPS School Board takes forward-looking actions
The Mountain Lake Public School (MLPS) School Board met on Monday, May 5, and undertook and passed a number of forward-looking actions.
It was revealed that negotiations with the Mountain Lake Education Association (MLEA) had successfully ended on Tuesday morning, April 22, and that contract was approved as presented by school board members. According to Mountain Lake Superintendent Bill Strom, “Our approach to negotiations was to make every effort to come to an agreement that was consistent with schools that are similar in size and located in our area of the state. The salary increase for the two years will be 5.34%. The average for similar size schools was 6.34%. Like many people, the challenges facing negotiations this year had to do with increases in health care premiums. It seems that everywhere you look, employee health costs are increasing. As a result, employees have move into higher deductible plans.”
Also at the meeting, the school board approved the 2013-2016 Superintendent contract as presented.
As well, bus driver pay was approved as presented. Posting will also be done for a substitute bus driver position.
In other business
* Approved raising Town and Country Daycare rates five cents per hour for the infant and toddler rooms.
* Hired Jessica Bak as a Special Education Paraprofessional at a rate of $9.90 per hour.
* Accepted the resignation of Kindergarten Teacher Shelly Condon and approved the posting for Kindergarten and First Grade teachers.
* Approved the hiring of 6-8 summer custodial employees.
* Named Julie Brugman (school board member), Jerry Logue (community member) and Ricardo Renteria (community member) to serve as Independent School District #173 representatives on the Red Rock Ridge Integration Collaborative.
* Assigned Board Member Chad Pedersen as the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) official school representative/designee.
* Approved the attached Certificates for Diploma/Certificates of Attendance. A total of 39 candidates for graduation were approved. Commencement is scheduled for Friday, May 16, at 7 p.m., in the school’s auditorium.
* Approved the Fiscal Year 2015 Integration Plan and Budget as presented. Superintendent Strom explains that, “The focus for our integration plan with Windom and Jackson County Central will focus on academic achievement and opportunity. Our plan will allow for each school to hire additional staff to help students learn. We also created an innovative plan to provide students with the opportunity to earn college credit through a summer school program.”
* Approved the purchase of a 2008 International bus from CarCo International of Rice, Minnesota, at a cost of $44,647.50. Notes Superintendent Strom, “Our bus fleet is aging. We need to update our fleet and plan to do so over the next few years. We have now replaced a 21-year-old bus with a 6-year-old bus. We anticipate purchasing another used bus this summer to replace a 22-year-old bus. A new bus costs about $95,000.”
Superintendent Strom continues with an explanation on school board discussion on the possibility of a joint busing service. “We hired a consultant to explore ways to improve our transportation services,” lays out Superintendent Strom. “Two things we learned form this study that we want to improve on are reducing the age of our bus fleet and shortening the length of time students ride our buses. We also looked into combining our transportation services with Windom and Jackson to see if a larger pool would lower busing costs and increase efficiency. From this, we learned that we are running a very efficient system. According to our projections, busing costs will be about $222 per day for next year.” He went on to highlight that two interested vendors had submitted quotes. ” One from Palmer Busing was for $254 per day and another from Metro Transportation Network was for $325 per day,” Superintendent Strom reports.