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   Board Chair Marc Ruyak called the regular board meeting to order on Wed., Mar. 20 and accepted the following donations: $500 from Hill City Thrift Store for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports; $2,000 from City of Longville for Supermileage; $100 from Northern Star Co-op Services for Prom; $100 from Crow Wing Power for Grad. Blast and $100 from Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe for Drum Group.

   Elementary Principal/Activities Director Janessa Green presented the 2024-2025 Master Schedule to the board for approval. In efforts to retain students and keep them from transferring or becoming on-line students, structural changes and class options have changed. The biggest change Green mentioned was moving sixth grade students into the junior high and having them move to different classes. Also, students in sixth, seventh and eighth grade will have a homeroom teacher with whom they will begin the day with and then they will also end the day with that same teacher in their core class the teacher teaches. Green said this will allow for better communication and check-in with students and will allow earlier intervention if a student is struggling.

   Another change for students is those in eleventh and twelfth grades will have better options for their English classes. Due to new English Language Standards that are rolling out for Minnesota some of the previous requirements were removed that were holding schools to American Lit and British Lit courses for grades eleventh and twelfth. With these changes Northland is able to offer some new classes such as Intro to Film, Mythology, Creative Writing and Survival Lit. After all questions from the board were answered the board approved the 2024-2025 Master Schedule.

   During Green’s regular reports, she informed the board the new math curriculum has been ordered and the committee was able to get everything they wanted just under the $80,000 budgeted amount. Next curriculum review is for science/industrial technology which will be purchased for the 2025-2026 school year. Green then shared a Co-op update with the board, by saying Minnesota State High School League approved the volleyball co-op and interviews for head coach were held this past week. A recommendation to hire Stacey Wake was presented to Hill City School due to them being the host school for volleyball. 

   Green also mentioned after the Co-op meeting held Mar. 6, a survey was sent out to all sixth through eleventh grade boys’ basketball players in both schools for feedback on a possible co-op. Another survey was sent to current sixth through eleventh grade girls’ volleyball players to determine what supports are needed to make the first year of co-oping successful. Green reported after briefly looking through the volleyball surveys there was positive feedback.

   In other Board action:

   • Approved increasing the Speech Pathology position from .8 FTE to .9 FTE for the last quarter of the 2023-2024 school year and to a 1.0 FTE beginning in the 2024-2024 school year.

   • Approved parental leave for Paraprofessional Jordan Sawatzky for the full 2024-2024 school year.

   • Approved the hire of Denise Stefan as Head Track and Field coach for 2023-2024 season.

   • Accepted the resignation of Stacey McKinney as Senior Class Advisor, effective end of 2023-2024 school year.

   • Approved a three-year leave of absence for Special Education teacher Jodi Bullock beginning 2024-2025 school year.

   • Approved the reduction of High School Science teacher Rod Anderson’s position from 1.0 FTE to .4 FTE effective 2024-2025 school year.

   The board has scheduled the following meetings: a Storm Co-op meeting, Mon. Apr. 15 at 5:30 p.m. at Hill City School; the regular meeting, Wed., Apr. 17 at 5:30 p.m. and a work session, Wed., May 1 at 5:30 p.m. all meetings are held at Northland High School unless otherwise stated.

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