Sleepy Eye Board of Education Meeting Minutes 2/12
Minutes
Sleepy Eye ISD #84
Board of Education
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
5:30PM
Conference Room
Call to order: Attendance: Dan Marti ( 5:31), Joleen Dittbenner, Brian Nelson, Darla Remus, Casey Coulson, Adam Barka, Sheila Wurtzberger
Good News Items: 13 FFA Members interviewed yesterday for their State FFA Degrees and 7 for Proficiencies. All 13 will receive their degrees at the State Convention in April. Taylor Berkner, Logan Ludewig, Rachel Portner and Jasmine Petermann were all 1st in the Region for Proficiencies, Noah Rossbach and Davin Suess were 2nd and Camryn Maher was 3rd. All of the Proficiencies advanced to the State Judging. FFA Week is coming up quickly. We are kicking it off with a student dance this Friday and many activities are planned for next week to celebrate with 1,000,000 FFA members across the country! Conferences were held tonight for the elementary. Students came in 2nd place in Subsections for the 1 act play and advanced to state.
Recognition of visitors: Press and Staff
Approve Agenda M Casey Coulson 2nd Joleen Dittbenner M/C
Approve minutes of January 8, 2025 M Brian Nelson 2nd Casey Coulson M/C
Approve financial transactions and reports M Joleen Dittbenner 2nd Dan Marti M/C
Reports
Board: Policy met to look over policy 534 (School Meals Policy) & 522 (Non-Discrimination Policy). School Mascot Rebranding met and picked out 2 logos that we liked but would like to see more variations of. Meet and Confer met with the teachers so they could give their view of the new Administrative structure. The Personnel Committee met with Nancy Moore. Facilities met and went over expenses and projects that have been completed and coming up. Community Education met and went over the winter spring offerings along with what they have for pre K expenses. Riverbend had their reorganizational meeting.
Principal: Completed mid-year check-ins with all teachers. Selected sub-division AAA winners. Attended Region 2 meeting and interviewed sub-division winners to select a Region 2 winner. Attended my MASSP winter conference. Also scheduling 3rd observations with non-tenured teachers. Registration materials are out and due back by February 18th. Will begin working on the master schedule for next year, with a goal of having set by the end of March. The high school will also have a Magic Show presentation on February 21st. Our time will be 2:00 PM.
Superintendent: Scheduling 3rd round observations, setting up elementary fundraising for next year, Magic Show presentation 2/21/25 1:00PM (HS gym), looking at elementary attendance revisions, working on grandparents’ day, kindergarten round up March 4th 3:00PM-6:00PM. Legislative update and it is not looking great. Will know more at the end of February. Compensatory expenses are going down and we need more. We are going to lose about $218,000.
Presentation
FY 2026 budget draft by Amanda Boomgarden this is only a draft budget as no one knows what money is coming in. General Fund is based on 2%. She included the revenue from the Mental Health reimbursement. Federal Revenues she left the same as again she does not know the numbers yet. In June we will see the final budget. Expenditures she kept the same except for the TRA since that increased to 9.5%. Increased the expenditures for Dashir. Could see a deficit of $608,955. Went from 560 students to 504.
Discussion Item
Administrative structure: We will seek a resolution tonight. Brian believes that having two principals would be very beneficial for us. Joleen does not want more costs out there since the budget looks gloomy. She believes that Nancy has stepped up and done the work. Adam says the budget is concerning but we would take more time away from the Superintendent if we do not get another principal. Just because we look for a principal does not guarantee that we find one that fits our needs. Darla wants to see us grow and believes that we too, need another principal. Nancy would not be able to do the performance reviews or suspensions. What we see now is that John is spreading himself too thin when you are looking at the time he is spending doing the principal job versus a superintendent job. Our main goal should be our students and staff. Casey would like us to spend the money in reserves before we ask for money from the public and we need to focus on our staff and students and we cannot keep up with everything that needs to be done here.
Adam Barka moves that we hire a full time principal Brian Nelson seconds. M/C
Action items
Approve Environmental Consulting Agreement with Harbo Consulting agency for the 2026-2029 school years @$12,000 annually
Approve Pay Equity Implementation Report
Approve childcare leave request for Anna Whooley
Approve childcare leave request for Karlie Mathiowetz
Approve revised policy 522 and 534
Declare the old food service steam tables surplus
Approve the following open enrollment request 2: 1 in from Mountain Lake, 1 out to Hutchinson
Approve the 2024-25 spring coaching assignments as presented
Approve resolution directing administration to make recommendations for reductions in program for 2025-26 and positions and reasons therefore.
Approve the following donations: $250 by Farmward Coop to the SE FFA, $250 by AgQuest Financial Services to the SE FFA, $500 by Land O’Lakes Foundation to the SE FFA, $200 by Michael and Candace Helget to the SE Care Closet fund. Thank you for all the donations, they are greatly appreciated.
Approve Darla Remus’ nomination to serve on the South Central Service Cooperative Board of Directors
M Brian Nelson 2nd Adam Barka M/C
Next meeting is Wednesday, March 19, 5:30PM
Adjourn. Time 6:40 p.m. M Joleen Dittbenner 2nd Casey Coulson M/C
Respectfully submitted,
Sheila Wurtzberger/Clerk
