Two seats to open on Tea Area School Board
At the Feb. 10 Tea Area school board meeting, Superintendent Jennifer Lowery updated the board on the proposed land swap with the Lennox School District.
The next stage of the process is to complete an appraisal of the land. Lennox Superintendent Chad Conaway received two quotes for the appraisal from Kaschmitter at $12,500 and Shaykett at $13,500. They will use Kaschmitter, but will wait until after July 1 so they can budget for splitting the cost with Lennox.
In construction updates, operations manager Wayne Larsen noted that they have a few punch list items to finish up at Frontier Elementary. He hoped those would be wrapped up this week. At the high school, they are working to finish the ventilation work in the bus parking portion of the CTE building and bus barn. Once that is completed, they need an inspection done to get the go-ahead to park buses in there.
Business manager Chris Esping reported on the Trust & Agency reports. She updated the board on the balances for the different groups within the school and their planned fundraisers.
She also noted that board members Kristen Daggett and Tara Johanneson’s seats expire this year. Petitions can start circulating April 7 and must be filed with the district office by 5 p.m. May 8.
The board approved the resignations for Jennifer Sheetz for foodservice and Margaret Paulson as paraprofessional, effective immediately, and Taylor Mugge as middle school teacher and Jackie Foster as counselor, effective at the end of the school year.
They approved the new hires of Austin Koehler for middle school football, Clay Robinson as math/science teacher for one year, Sarah Lider for middle school foodservice and JeanAnn Bryan for Venture foodservice.
Due to a number of board members and the superintendent being absent for the traditional March meeting of the second Monday of the month, the board moved the meeting to Thursday, March 12 at 6:30 p.m.
With the purchase of new protective floor mats for the high school gym, the board surplused the old mats, along with a poly water tank, utility trailer and the high school sound system for parts.
They approved the annual renewal for TASK. Daggett will serve as the board member to attend board of equalization meetings in March.
Hannah Hank and Kennedy Konrad gave the student council report, which was an update on the CTE building and how students are enjoying classes in the new building.
In Lowery’s report, she noted two families with three students applied for public school exemption. She also recognized Feb. 17-21 as school board recognition week.
Venture Elementary principal Jay Swatek reported on the school’s civic leadership projects. Each grade is doing their own project to support the community.
In board committee reports, Sprouts met last week and dates for the Terrific Two’s program were set. For library, they met last week and revisited the use of the public computer and internet user agreement. For legislative, board member Conrad Pick reported on the legislative coffee recently held in Tea and Lowery noted she will be going to Pierre soon to testify in support of SB 94 and SB 174. No update for TASK, finance, construction/land and continuous school improvement.
The board went into executive session at 7:30 p.m.
After executive session, the board approved the following:
The superintendent’s contract was approved through the 2022-2023 school year.
The administrative contracts were approved through the 2021-2022 school year. The District administrative team includes Allison Bertram (Assistant Middle School Principal), Michael Bullis (Middle School Principal), Brent DeBoer (Activities Director), Chris Esping (Business Manager), Chris Friedrich (Tech Director), Barb Hansen (Elementary Principal), Collin Knudson (High School Principal), Wayne Larsen (Operations Manager), David Preheim (Assistant High School Principal), Jay Swatek (Elementary Principal), Jody Taylor (Special Education Director), Samantha Walder (Elementary Principal), and Tonia Warzecha (Director of Curriculum and Assessment).
Support Service Contracts were added an additional year as well. District Support Service team includes Craig Clayberg, Delores Stratmeyer, Wendie Morehead, Vickie Barbeau, Amanda Brinkman, Tara Krell, Jill Steinback Adams, Amy Petersen, Megan Sengos, Jenny Holmes, Jill Lear, Lisa Bannwarth, Shauna Fox-Hamilton, and Alyssa Pfeifle.