BROKEN BOW— While the 2018-2019 school year is still around two months away from being completed, the Broken Bow Public School Board is already making plans for the 2019-2020 school year.
Board Treasurer JB Adkins began the meeting by letting the board know that the while there was no reason to panic, he was a little concerned with the school not generating much revenue lately to stay on pace with last year’s revenue numbers. The school has also not received any tax revenue which is expected to come in within the next couple of months.
Mark Shaw, with Higher Ability Learners (HAL) and the 5th grade teacher at North Park Elementary, talked to the board about the program and gave them an update on what was taking place. Logan Bell and Gracie Pearson, two of eight 5th graders participating in HAL, talked with the board about using a 3D printer, creating rollercoasters, LEGO robots, and other ideas that they have designed on their own.
Mr. Shaw told the board that usually they try and have 4th-6th grade involved but due to scheduling conflicts, they were only able to have 5th grade this year. To be a participant in HAL, students must score in the 95th percentile on qualifying assessment scores in one or more categories.
According to school administration, Suzanne Smith has been recognized as the 2019 HOSA Advisor of the Year at the HOSA Conference which was been held in Omaha the past few days. Jake Smallcomb and Isak Chancellor were recognized by Jeff Ellis at the board meeting as they will be competing at NSAA State Speech on Thursday in Kearney. Ellis also noted that there were over 160 students out for track from Jr. High through high school and around 15 participating in boys golf. Kesha Degroff was also recognized by Rusty Kluender for being awarded the RHOP scholarship where she will be attending Chadron State College.
Darren Tobey had some good news for students as through all the snow, at least for the moment, they would not have to come back for extra days. The teachers however, will have to come back to school to make up the required hours.
Action items were the final topic on the agenda where the board approved the purchase of American history text books for up to $65,000. The books will mostly be online for the secondary level with around 20 paper books being purchased for classes, while all books in the elementary school will be paper books.
The board also approved the purchase plan for a new bus which would cost approximately $64,000 for the next three years to pay off the possible loan from Nebraska State Bank. The board noted that there were multiple directions to pay for the bus, but approving the plan gave Darren Tobey a direction to go on for deciding the best purchase plan
Computer bids were also approved allowing for the purchase of Chromebooks for K-12 at around $60,000 per year. Tobey estimated that the cost each year to buy new Chromebooks to cycle out old ones would stay near the $60,000 mark.
A $1.5 million bond is hopefully going to be placed into a CD for the next three years to gain interest after the board decided to go ahead with this option over two others. A representative from Nebraska State Bank attended the meeting and did note that if the first option was not approved through the bank a second option would have to be decided on. Knowing this information the board also approved a fallback option of $1 million in a three year CD while the remaining 500,000 would be placed in a two year CD.
The final approvals were the annual report and ESU contracts. The ESU contracts allow for Broken Bow to pay a fee for when they need to have a speech specialist, hearing specialist, etc. attend the school without having to hire their own personal specialist. Renewing the contracts saves the school a large amount of money.
The next Broken Bow Public School Board Meeting work session will be held on April 1 at 5 PM. The next regular meeting will be held on April 15 with the time to be determined.
