ELY – Citing “substantial” costs and a lack of anticipated learning opportunities, the Ely school board voted this week to rescind the seven-period school day and will revert to a six-period day next year.
The board met for just 30 minutes Monday night and the four members present voted unanimously to accept the administration’s recommendation to alter the school day schedule “due to budget constraints.”
“With the seven-hour day, the hope was to have more electives for our students,” Megan Anderson, 6-12 principal said. She justified the school day schedule reversal, saying, “We were coming into a (teacher contract) negotiation year, and there were a lot of other factors in the mix.”
Anderson continued, “We looked at what the costs would be. (Last year) there was a discussion that there would not be a lot of additional costs, but it ended up being a pretty substantial cost to the district to offer that seventh period. And we ended up with kids not having a lot of extra (class) options.”
Students who did not opt to add another learning opportunity to their school day were scheduled into a study hall period, according to Anderson. “That really was a great piece this year to have that extra study hall, but it didn’t offer more classes, which was a little bit disheartening,” she said.
“Now we are looking at this again, knowing that we are in the budget phase (and looking at) what we can do. We are having discussions about semester classes rather than a full year stretch, so we can offer more opportunities for the kids,” Anderson continued. “The four core subjects (language arts, math, science, and social studies) are set, but we are looking at what else we can do.”
As an example, she offered psychology for one semester to be paired with a health class in the second semester as a way to offer additional learning opportunities for Ely students. “We are trying to get a little more creative within those time constraints,” she said. “This is the first step that I’m looking at in creating the master schedule for next year.”
Rochelle Sjoberg, who is acting as temporary school board chair as Ray Marsnik recovers from injuries he sustained in a motor vehicle accident late last year, said she reviewed the school board minutes from last year and indicated that the switch from a six-period to a seven-period school day was presented by the former ISD 696 superintendent “at no cost, and it is unfortunate that is not how it rolled out. We probably got the cart before the horse.”
Sjoberg continued, “I think the best thing that we can do is to move forward with the recommendation today. I would recommend that if we look at this again, we have this more laid out prior to making a decision. Hopefully that is something we can look at doing next time around.”
Board discards study session
On the recommendation of Interim Superintendent John Klarich, the school board voted unanimously to discard their monthly study session, typically held on the fourth Monday of the month, and instead conduct a second regular business meeting on that day each month. The school board will continue to hold their regular monthly business meeting on the second Monday of each month.
Klarich cited the increased decision making and approval process required by the school board for the foreseeable future regarding the school district’s continuing building and facility renovation project for the second business meeting.
“We are going to be getting (construction) changes and all sorts of things that we will have to make decisions on quite frequently, and I just want to make sure that we don’t have to wait a whole month to get something accomplished,” Klarich said.
He noted that with the building construction scheduled to be completed by the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, “we are busy from here on until that building is opened up, and if we have to make changes, we’ll have to know right away.”
He continued, “Any kind of delay now will delay that (grand) opening.”
School board member Tony Colarich said he supports the change to a second monthly business meeting for the school board. “This gives the public an opportunity to participate in the public forum if it is a regular meeting,” he said.
Special meetings will still be held by the school board when necessary. “We are doing this just to move the (building) project along so that we don’t get held up or have to call special meetings throughout the spring and summer,” Klarich said.
Other business
In other action, the school board:
• Adopted the 2022-2023 school calendar that provides for a 172-day school year. The school starts on Tuesday, Sept. 6. The last day of school, and graduation, is set for Friday, June 2, 2023. Winter break begins Friday, Dec. 23 and runs through Monday, Jan. 2, 2023.
• Hired Matthew Thibodeaux for the full-time, long-term substitute art teacher position from Feb. 4 –May 4, 2022.
• Accepted the resignation of Jessica Anderson from the Indian Education Homeschool liaison position effective March 1.
• Accepted the resignation of Jason Kelley from his full-time custodian position effective March 18.
• Accepted the resignation of Mary Fleetwood from her special education teaching position effective June 30, 2022.
• Renewed the following assistant coaches for the 2021-2022 school year, Max Gantt, assistant baseball coach, Megan Wognum, assistant softball coach, Nate LaFond, assistant girls track coach.
• Approved the following assistant coaches, Darren Visser, assistant boys track coach, Jim Wittrup, Paul Kienitz and Derek Johnson, volunteer assistant baseball coaches, Tony Rechichi, volunteer assistant softball coach.