MEEKER | The Meeker School District RE-1 Board of Education held its regular February meeting last week at the district office, with all members present.
The board approved the agenda before recognizing the Barone Middle School MathCounts team, coached by Meeker High School juniors Tucker Chinn and Said Rodriguez. The team competed Feb. 7 at the regional competition in Grand Junction, where students Xander Borchard and Miles Etchart qualified for the state competition March 28 at Colorado School of Mines.
Much of the meeting centered on graduation requirements and whether adjustments could provide students more flexibility without creating unintended consequences.
Superintendent Chris Selle framed the discussion around minimizing disruption.
High School Principal Amy Chinn cautioned that reducing required coursework — such as eliminating a fourth year of English — could affect staffing and student preparedness.
“Let’s say that you don’t require a fourth year of English,” Chinn said. “If you don’t teach that anymore, or you don’t get people signed up for it, you have a teacher with an empty period. And so I think you have to on the required classes. I think you need to be careful about that.”
Chinn also referenced past graduate surveys that raised concerns about students feeling unprepared after high school. “Because 18-year-olds, 17-year-olds don’t always make the best decisions,” she said.
At the same time, she emphasized that required courses must remain worthwhile. “If you’re required to do a fourth year of English, it needs to be a meaningful experience for you,” Chinn said. “Making sure that what we’re getting is justifiable and meaningful.”
The discussion also addressed how Career and Technical Education requirements connect to federal Perkins funding. Family and Consumer Science teacher Brenda Hummel explained that students must complete four semesters in an approved pathway to qualify as “concentrators,” which affects funding eligibility.
“You have to have an approved program through the state to have any access to Perkins funding,” Hummel said. “In order to receive Perkins funding, you have to have so many — these used to be called completers, now they’re called concentrators. … To have a concentrator, they have to be in the program for two years.”
While the two-year CTE requirement is not strictly mandated for graduation, Hummel said maintaining approved programs remains financially beneficial.
“We’ve discussed like, is it worth doing all of this for those Perkins funds?” she said. “And the long-term answer is, it definitely is. It’s quite a chunk of money over the long term.”
Hummel also highlighted the Teacher Cadet program, which places students in classrooms for hands-on experience and can lead to significant college credit.
Selle said staff feedback and further analysis will guide future discussions.
“This will be our next work session agenda,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of opportunity to discuss whether we should make a change.”
The board also reviewed results from Selle’s annual evaluation. Twenty-three individuals responded to the survey.
“For the most part, the responses were pretty positive,” he said. “There was one question on here about being active as liaison for the school district and community and maintaining appropriate positive relations with staff, parents, and community. I can see what classification of individuals filled them out when you look at the individual results, I know it was a teacher. I have no idea who it was. I don’t need to know who it was, but they marked me as ineffective on that particular one.”
Selle acknowledged the critique. “I think it’s fair critique if there’s context,” he said.
Additional updates included ongoing recruitment for district vacancies, a vendor walkthrough for the district’s intercom system project and limited progress on a potential school resource officer partnership.
Although executive session was listed on the agenda for a student discipline matter, the board did not enter executive session that evening and adjourned following discussion. The next meeting is scheduled for March 9 at 7 p.m. at the district office for a work session.