Elk Mound school board gives go-ahead to consider summer school bus route

By LeAnn R. Ralph

ELK MOUND  —  The Elk Mound Board of Education has agreed that Mound View Elementary should explore the idea of a summer school pilot program for a bus route to bring students to school.

Students experience a “summer slide” and lose some of their math and reading skills during the summer, so a bus route in the summer to bring students to school who need extra help would be  a worthwhile program to try, said Eric Hanson, Mound View Elementary principal, at the Elk Mound Board of Education’s March 28 meeting.

Summer transportation might cost the school district $5,000, “but for those few kids who need it, it might be really worth it,” said Ron Walsh, Elk Mound superintendent.

Teachers are spending a certain amount of time in the fall re-teaching concepts that students learned the previous year, said Kyle Jenson, vice-president of the school board.

Spending money to eliminate some of the re-teaching so teachers can move forward in the fall “would be proactive,” he said.

“We are in the business of helping kids succeed,” Jenson said.

Tim Sivertson, board of education president, wondered about an online academy.

An online academy would not count for summer school, Hanson said, noting that Mound View Elementary has done a summer reading challenge.

The state Department of Public Instruction has changed the number of minutes that students can be taught during the summer, Dr. Walsh said.

“It used to be 270 (minutes) a day for aid, but now the lid is off to encourage all-day programs,” he said.

A transportation program may create opportunities to pull students in for all day, which would also require a lunch program, Dr. Walsh noted.

“We’ve talk about it for years. We could do it as a one-year pilot,” said Eric Wright, principal at Mound View Elementary who has been hired as the new superintendent to replace Dr. Walsh upon his retirement this summer.

The question to consider — “is it a value to parents and to the community? Until we explore the option, we don’t really know,” Wright said.

Sivertson agreed that Elk Mound should try a pilot program to see how it works.

“There is no time like the present to try it,” he said.

The school district will not receive state aid for the time the students are riding the bus, and Elk Mound is not going to run two-hour bus routes in the summer, Wright noted.

“But we need kids here to help them in the classroom,” he said.

Although it was not an agenda item, it was the consensus of the Elk Mound Board of Education that the school district should obtain more information about setting up a summer school pilot program for transportation to Mound View Elementary for the summer school program.

Other business 

In other business, the Elk Mound Board of Education:

• Approved purchasing a new 2015 Freightliner 74-passenger school bus from Nelson’s Bus Service in the amount of $81,936.

• Approved setting up several accounts with Independence State Bank in Elk Mound, including an activity account and a deposit savings account. The new accounts are necessary because the Bremer Bank branch in Elk Mound is closing.

• Accepted the resignation of Tim Lambele as the Science Olympiad coach. Lambele has been coaching Science Olympiad for one year.

• Accepted the resignation of Margaret Marmitt as the middle school yearbook advisor.

• Accepted the resignation of Mark Rasmusson, who has been out for a little over year due to special circumstances. Rasmusson has been in the district as a teacher for five years and served three or four years as a half-time aide and a teacher.

• Accepted the resignation of Jon Tanberg as a long-term substitute teacher for Rasmusson. The school district received legal advice that it was better to accept the resignation of a long-term substitute teacher rather than non-renewing the contract.

• Accepted the resignation of Angela Klemp as the noon route bus driver. Klemp still plans to drive the regular bus route.

• Approved requests for early retirement from Bruce Winchester, high school government teacher, and Jeff Mack, high school math teacher.

• Set the next regular monthly school board meeting for April 25.

• Approved the CESA No. 11 service contract for the 2016-2017 school year.

Following a closed session, the Elk Mound Board of Education:

• Hired Eric Young as a high school science teacher, Science Olympiad coach, and an assistant high school football coach.

• Hired Mike Proft, a fifth grade teacher, as the middle school boys’ basketball coach.

• Hired Erin Tomlinson, a fifth grade teacher, as the middle school yearbook advisor.

• Hired Chris Hahn, fourth grade teacher, as the middle school principal.