Meeker School District Board of Directors and staff kicked of regular meetings for 2024 this week Meeting discussion time was primarily dedicated toward finances and FY 2024-25 budget preparations. The board also reviewed staff updates, clarifications and action steps regarding threat assessments and student safety, talked virtual attendance, teacher training requirements and other regular business items.
THREAT ASSESSMENTS/STUDENT SAFETY
Meeker School District Superintendent Chris Selle noted staff responses to a string of recent threats to student safety. Following reported student threats made at Meeker Elementary School last week, Selle published a series of videos to the school’s Facebook page updating the community on the process of assessing the threat. No students were harmed, though the event did result in expulsions/suspensions of two students.
During the school board’s regular meeting Monday, Selle focused discussions around how the staff is trained, according to district policy and state/federal law, to respond to threats.
“When we do a full threat assessment, we involve mental health partners, local law enforcement, school staff, and anybody else who’s going to have relevant information for us.” Selle said. He shared comments and facilitated discussion with the board about the extensive nature of threat assessments, highlighting their time-consuming, delicate and nuanced nature given some public frustration over how quickly parents were able to get information during last week’s incident. MHS Principal Amy Chinn further emphasized how much effort, training and collaboration between various school and community professionals goes into such an assessment in order to return students to a safe environment, according to procedure.
Selle said the next step will be to offer more information about the complex nature of such assessments so that parents can understand how administration works to ensure student safety during any kind of threat event.
Selle and some board members reiterated Selle’s comments about viability and severity of reaction to threats, noting for example that actions like full evacuation, and various other drastic responses could result in more dangerous and/or unpredictable situations particularly when a threat is more than likely frivolous.
BUDGET & FINANCES
The board approved the final Fiscal Year 2024 budget and appropriation resolution, and FY24 resolution to spend beginning fund balance. The preliminary budget for FY25 will be set in June and approved in January of 2025. Selle discussed various highlights in the budget noting that it shows deficit spending of about $160K and various other places where expenditures exceed revenues in budgeted amounts. He discussed how this practice is normal procedure for the district, made possible due to a consistent habit of budgeting expenses and underestimating revenues. This has also led to strong reserves, according to Selle. A few major expenses up front for the year include $50K allocated for staff bonuses and a $100K from the General Fund to replenish the Capital Reserve fund which was use din part to purchase a Greenhouse which is still en-route, according to Selle.
Other budget statistics noted are that approximately 70% of expenditures go to staff salaries, Which he said is a little low but would fluctuate, remaining within normal for a district this size either way. The general fund balance continues to fluctuate between $4-4.8 million, another buffer Selle said justified deficit spending.
OTHER BUSINESS
The board accepted teacher resignations from HS science teacher Michaela Jones and fourth grade teacher Dawn Hollenbeck, reviewed and discussed plans to update their virtual attendance policy for meetings due to state requirements and a multi-year old policy, an increase to base-salary levels to help entice new teachers to Meeker, and the need to update the current bidding policy to allow administration to spend more than $1K before needing board signatures, the updated number would be closer to $5K upon further review and adoption of the policy update. The board will meet for a work session on Monday, Feb. 12 and regular meeting on Monday, Feb. 26.
By Lucas Turner | Special to the Herald
