At Monday evening’s Broken Bow board of education meeting, President Tom Osmond tabled a vote on a new two-year teacher agreement until March. Osmond said there’s just a few details left to iron out, one of those being how to structure raises.
“I think one part on this is we extended the years that you could get paid on, so everybody will continue to get raises where before people would be tapped out and the only way to get a raise is through the base and people should be able to move down on their steps to continue getting raises, so I think it’ll be, we’ve mitigated some of that.”
In other board business, Superintendent Darren Tobey said the 2025-26 school year will start with staff workdays August 18-29, with students first day of school on Tuesday September 2nd. Winter break will be a full two weeks, from December 22-January 4. And following a staff vote, teachers and students will enjoy the Monday after Easter, instead of taking Good Friday off. The last day for students in 2026 will be May 22nd, with staff workdays scheduled May 26-27.
Four resignations were accepted at the meeting. High School Principal Dan Helberg accepted a job in Loup County, Mason Heath resigned from his teaching position to be a farmer and rancher, Mikaela Geiser resigned as a speech-language pathologist to take a job in Merna, and English Learners K-5 teacher Jennifer Swisher has accepted a PE position at Anselmo-Merna.
The Board approved seven policies, ranging from employment of relatives, domestic partners and significant others, personnel records, restrictions on employees receiving gratuities, and inclement weather policies of the district.
In other school board business, Tobey said construction at the school is moving along at a good pace. He said crews will start to take out walls Tuesday.
Cecilia Nunez, who works with English Language learners in the middle and high school, introduced herself at the meeting. Nunez is working on her administrative masters degree, and part of the requirement is to attend school board meetings.
Tobey singled out the school’s wrestlers who qualified for the state wrestling tournament this week in Omaha. Broken Bow is represented by 3 girls and 7 boys at state. Also, the school will compete at the State Cheer championships this weekend in Grand Island, and Tobey said the speech team is performing well.
Also at the meeting, the treasurer’s report and claims report was approved 4-0, with Colby Fisher abstaining from voting.
The next school board work session is March 3rd at Noon, with the next board meeting scheduled for March 17th at 6pm in the public library meeting room.
