School gets preliminary budget numbers

The Tea Area School Board met May 19 and heard numbers for the preliminary budget.

Business manager Chris Esping presented a preliminary budget for fiscal year 2026. She will present another budget in July and the final budget will be adopted in September. They are budgeting conservatively for 2,562 students.

Since they are in negotiations for purchasing land for the middle school, they tabled that item.

The board approved the resignations for Lisa Bannwarth as school psychologist, Corbin Gunderson as paraprofessional, Mahyle Hausman as Venture technology teacher, Ali Hartman as Frontier administrative assistant, Holly Kerkman as paraprofessional, Kaitlin Niles as paraprofessional and Serena Tunge as Venture third grade teacher effective at the end of the year and the resignations of Taylor Becker as 10th grade boys basketball, Kade Stearns for ninth grade boys basketball and Daniella Stitch as paraprofessional.

They approved the new hires of Audrey Downes for high school social studies, Breanna Klocke as Frontier teacher (grade to be determined), Kaylee Munson as Frontier kindergarten teacher, Brittney Reiter for Venture second grade and Tiffany Svennes as head middle school track coach for fiscal year 2026 and Emily Henze as Frontier Summer Bridge Program teacher and Bailey Todd as school psychologist intern.

The board was also notified of the transfer of Lanesha Underberg from Venture second grade to third grade.

The board set the business office summer hours to be Monday through Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through Aug. 1.

They approved the foodservice contracts through their buying group that are the same as last year with contracts with Performance Food Service, Avera Pace/Prairie Farms and Pan-O-Gold.

The board approved casting ballots for SDHSAA small school board representative Billy Clanton from Harding County, East River at-large representative Ryan Rollinger from Harrisburg, Division I representative Steve Moore from Sioux Falls Roosevelt, Division III representative Chad Allison from Lennox and voting yes on all five constitutional amendments that deal with cleaning up some wording and loopholes in regard to open enrollment.

Superintendent Jennifer Lowery went over the parent/student engagement report where the scores continue to increase. One of the highlights is the net promoter score is high where those rating a 9 or 10 will speak highly of the district without being prompted, 7 or 8 are passive and below a 6 will speak poorly of the district without being prompted.

The board heard from Lowery, the building principals and curriculum director Samantha Walder on the district’s goal review. 

The goal review can be found on the district’s website.