Grand Forks Public Schools to create mental health director position
Jun. 9—GRAND FORKS — Grand Forks Public Schools plans to create a new director-level mental health position in order to meet growing needs in the district.
The creation of the new behavioral health and wellness director comes after the resignation of the district's mental health coordinator. Whenever a position is vacated, district officials consider whether there's a way to restructure the position to better serve students.
In this instance, "there was a loud cry from a variety of people to actually elevate the position," Associate Superintendent Catherine Gillach said.
"You've heard over the course of the years some of the cries from our classroom teachers and even our special education staff themselves for help when the needs of the students might exceed what our capacity is," Gillach said, addressing the Grand Forks School Board at its regular meeting on Monday. "So really, we're looking to put this whole portfolio underneath the umbrella of somebody who has a high level of expertise and would be able to make directions and directives and that sort of thing."
The creation of the position is in alignment with the district's strategic plan, which heavily emphasizes student mental health and wellness, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, Gillach noted.
The new director's job duties would include recruiting, hiring and training mental health staff, establishing partnerships with community-based organizations, planning for and executing crisis response efforts, grant procurement and management, co-leading Medicaid billing efforts and more, according to minutes from the June 2 meeting of the district Finance Committee, where the position was first proposed.
The director is tentatively expected to be paid $108,669, a $13,400 increase over the existing mental health coordinator position. The final number may increase based on the final candidate's experience.
In other news, the board:
* Recommended the district adopt Nike as the exclusive brand represented by district athletic programs with BSN Sports as the district's exclusive supplier of athletic apparel. BSN Sports was selected over a bid from GameOne for the values of incentives it offered in its bid, its ability to comply with the district's requirements and its experience with the district. The agreement with the district will have a term of five years. Previously, teams within the district independently purchased athletic apparel. By contracting with one distributor, the district hopes to find efficiencies.
* Approved a Finance Committee recommendation to establish a building fund ending balance of $1.62 million for fiscal year 2026. The board also heard an update from Brandon Baumbach on behalf of the Finance Committee that the committee reaffirmed its commitment to providing busing from the Red River and Central campuses to the Career Impact Academy.
* Heard an update on the district's child nutrition program from Wendie Mankie, director of child nutrition. About 7,600 students districtwide eat school breakfast and lunch, up from last year. In the 2024-2025 school year, students ate 381,811 school breakfasts, up from 380,279 in 2023-2024 and 372,890 in 2017-2018. In 24-25, students ate 890,264 school lunches, compared with 887,426 in 23-24 and 944,256 in 17-18. Last school year, 38% of students were eligible for free and reduced price meals, compared to 34% in 23-24 and 35% in 22-23. As of May 27, there was a minus-$84,439.91 negative balance of meal accounts, down from minus-$14.65 in the 2021-2022 school year. In the coming years, Director of Child Nutrition Wendy Mankie hopes to increase meal participation at breakfast and lunch, increase the amount of from-scratch cooking in the school kitchens, implement a meal repack program and incorporate more farm-to-school items in the menus.
* Accepted the resignation of Cassaundra Riewer, associate principal of Lake Agassiz Elementary. Riewer has worked at Lake Agassiz for 12 years.
* Formally appointed Amber Basting as Valley Middle School's new associate principal. Basting has been a special education coordinator for Grand Forks Central and Red River high schools for three years, and recently became head of the district's Social Academic Intervention Learning (SAIL) Center. She has a total 14 years of professional experience in education. She will be paid $100,568 annually.
* Renewed the memorandum of agreement with the city and the Grand Forks Police Department for School Resource Officer services for the upcoming school year. The MOA allows SROs in all in-town middle and high schools, and will be largely the same as previous school years, except for an increase of $3,641.68 in the contracted amount. The school district pays for half of the SRO program for a total cost to the district of $208,006.75 next school year.
* Approved a Consolidated Grant Application for federal Title funding for the district. The district is applying for nearly $2.83 million in federal funding through Title I, a decrease of nearly $221,000 since last year. Allocations for Title II, III and IV have not yet been determined, but total Title funding for the district for the 2024-2025 school year was roughly $4.208 million.
* Heard an update from the School Board Self-Assessment Committee. The board will consider future changes to how public comment portions of the meetings are structured. According to current board policy, the board does not respond to public comments made at board meetings. One option floated for future consideration is to have the board present a regular report on how the district internally responded to and handled comments.
* Pending the receipt of additional quotes, the board accepted a bid from Liberty Mutual, its current provider, for property insurance.
* Renewed Community High School's current lease through June 1, 2026, for an annual cost of $173,700.
* Recommended Crary Real Estate as the seller of the house constructed by Ben Moen and his students during the 2024-2025 school year. Crary will earn a 5% commission on the sale.
* Recommended contract negotiations with the Grand Forks Directors' Association and Grand Forks Principals' Association be extended past the July 1 deadline. Because of scheduling conflicts, negotiators have not been able to complete negotiations.
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