VIRGINIA- The ISD 2142 school board took care of a number of personnel and operational items at their July 25 regular business meeting in preparation for the upcoming 2023-24 school year.
The district realized some savings from a hard line the board took at June’s regular meeting regarding propane fuel bids from Ferrellgas. The board objected to the price quotes for propane at Cherry and Tower-Soudan schools, where Ferrellgas owns the tanks and therefore holds the right to service them. The bids submitted by Ferrellgas in June, $1.13/gallon for Cherry and $1.699/gallon for Tower-Soudan, were significantly higher than the bids of $1.035 and $1.009 submitted by Superior Fuel for South Ridge, North Woods, and Northeast Range. Board members elected not to approve the bids from Ferrellgas at that time and indicated they wanted to look into installing their own propane tanks in order to obtain more competitive bids.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Ferrellgas came back with bids of $1.08 for both locations, five cents a gallon cheaper for Cherry and almost 62 cents a gallon cheaper for Tower-Soudan. The board responded favorably to the adjustments by approving the bids.
Board members were presented with proposed changes to two dozen district policies, almost all of which were minor ones necessary to bring the policies in line with new laws passed by the Minnesota Legislature this past spring. Unlike new policies that require multiple readings at multiple meetings to pass, the board had the authority to approve all revisions to existing policies at Tuesday’s meeting.
In other business, the board:
• Approved a professional service contract with Range Mental Health Center to provide children’s mental health services throughout the district. The contract establishes rates payable for specific kinds of mental health services, with the total paid over the duration of the one-year contract to be determined by the amount of services deemed necessary to provide for student needs.
• Approved a memorandum of understanding for the bus drivers contract stipulating that assignments for time made up for lost duty days will be determined by the transportation director.
• Approved the official 2023-24 school calendar.
• Approved the Long-Term Facilities Maintenance report.
• Hired Jessica Gillson for a 0.3 Special Education assignment at Tower-Soudan, which creates a full-time equivalent teacher position.
•  Hired Jennifer Fredrickson as a 0.8 equivalent long-term special education substitute at Tower Soudan.
• Hired Dawn Merrill as a full-time language arts teacher at Northeast Range.
• Hired Rebecca Bundy as full-time site I secretary at North Woods.
• Hired Denise Balbach as a 37.5 hour per week nutrition employee at Tower-Soudan.
• Hired Lara Poderzay as assistant volleyball coach at Northeast Range.
• Hired Charissa Dahl as part-time community education coordinator at Tower-Soudan.
• Accepted resignations from North Woods preschool teaching assistant Rebecca Smith, NER library assistant Dawn Merrill, NER paraprofessional Paul Zollinger, North Woods Health/PE teacher Joshua Walls, and Tower-Soudan special education teacher Tim Herring.
• Noted the transfer of North Woods custodian Jessica Plassmeyer to Northeast Range.
• Terminated Northeast Range paraprofessionals Jon Evridge and Jacara Brown for failure to obtain a passing result on the ParaPro Assessment in the time required by their terms of employment.
• Recognized newly tenured teachers David Trandahl, North Woods special education, and Kristine Sorgenfrei, Tower-Soudan elementary.