Latest news with #GrandForksSchoolBoard
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Grand Forks school administrators seeking $1.6 million for new English curriculum
Apr. 28—GRAND FORKS — Administrators are asking the Grand Forks School Board for $1.6 million over the next seven years to pay for new English curriculum. Chief Academic Officer Amy Bartsch presented the request for $1,574,000, including $422,832 in its first year, to purchase Wit and Wisdom curricular resources from developer Great Minds for kindergarten through fifth grade, as well as separate reading and handwriting curriculum. Grand Forks Public Schools previously purchased a 13-year license for Great Minds' sixth-grade curriculum using Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief, or ESSER, dollars in 2023. School Board members approved the purchase of a nine-year license for the seventh- and eighth-grade curriculum in 2024. Bartsch and Associate Superintendent Catherine Gillach separately touted the curriculum as a key tool to boost the district's test scores in reading and early literacy, with Gillach saying she expected to see "exponential increases" in performance. "This is the product that we need to help us move our student achievement," Bartsch said. The $1.6 million purchase price also includes a seven-year license for Really Great Reading and Really Great Handwriting curriculum. (Cursive is still being taught in district schools, though it will shift from being taught in the third grade to the second grade in 2026-27, with it being taught to both grades next academic year.) A high school steering committee elected to write its own curriculum, after the committee decided high school-level commercial curriculums offered little new benefit. That committee asked the School Board for $294,000 over the next seven years for new textbooks, replacing current class texts and adding new novels, as well as continuing to pay for an instructional tool that teaches academic and practical vernacular — like, for instance, the meaning of the word "vernacular." Board members will vote whether to approve payment for the new curriculum materials at the next School Board meeting. Grand Forks Public Schools and the Air Force base school district performed well on their annual audits, Brian Opsahl of Brady Martz and Associates told board members. The district ended the 2023-24 school year with $11.4 million in its general fund, some 7.8% of its $132 million in expenditures last year. Opsahl said the district should endeavor to have reserves of 10% or more, though he noted bigger school districts "can have a smaller fund because the size is a lot larger." He also noted that percentage incorporated some of the district's capital spending, meaning its financial position was probably better than the audit let on. District leadership partook in a controversial cost-cutting effort last year in a bid to boost the district's reserves to 15% of operating expenses, though School Board members have since wavered on that goal. "Guys and Dolls" and "All Shook Up" will be this year's summer musicals, according to Summer Performing Arts Director Allison Peterson. Already, 865 students are registered to participate in the summer program, Peterson said, on par with previous years. The performing arts program performed well during this year's Giving Hearts Day, receiving a $6,000 award for having the highest donor retention in 2025. "Guys and Dolls" will be performed at Central High School, while "All Shook Up" will be staged at Red River. In other news: * Red River classroom specialist Tim Delmore was named the classified employee of the quarter, while South Middle School's Title I coordinator, Theresa Ostgarden, was named the certified employee of the quarter. * The School Board formally accepted the resignation of Century Principal David Saxberg, who resigned April 7 effective at the end of the year. Saxberg's resignation leaves two elementary principal positions open at the end of the school year with Viking Principal Jolyn Bergstrom also retiring. * The district's mental health coordinator, Christine Litzinger, is leaving the district for family reasons. * Board members entered executive session for less than an hour to discuss safety and security upgrades to district schools. Discussions of school safety plans are exempt from open meetings laws under North Dakota Century Code 15.1-09-60. * Board members also visited Red River to view its new front office, part of the $18 million in safety and security upgrades being implemented across the district.
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Grand Forks School Board: redrawing school boundaries needs more time, resident input
Feb. 24—GRAND FORKS — Don't expect new school boundary lines in Grand Forks anytime soon. Months after signing off on it, Grand Forks School Board members on Monday appeared to rethink much of the process surrounding a planned redrawing of school borders, saying the process lacked sufficient community input and sought to make major changes based on inconclusive data. The whole thing might just need an overhaul, some members suggested, lest it shatter public trust. "If we continue on this path and don't take a hard pivot, then we are going to destroy trust with the public and our staff and the community," board member Amber Flynn said. Also during Monday's regularly scheduled meeting, the board heard an update on the $2.2 million defrauded from the district last summer. Board members for the most part have refrained from sharing their thoughts on the proposed boundaries. But on Monday, several members broke their silence on the latest set of borders proposed by a demographic task force composed principally of district staff and demography firm RSP & Associates. Their concerns focused on the creation of an "island" of residents living in the city's far southeastern neighborhood whose children would attend Viking Elementary instead of the closer Kelly Elementary, and an overcorrection of a perceived socioeconomic divide between Red River and Central high schools. The conversation quickly outgrew the latest set of maps and came to focus on the entire boundary line process, upon which board members had signed off in September. Flynn was a particularly vocal critic, pointing to the limited options for community input, the lack of representation for teachers or Grand Forks Air Force Base community members on the task force, and the failure to consider transportation options sufficiently. Several board members indicated they favor hosting another public forum to reach a broader cross-section of the community with the boundary lines proposals, an idea first floated by board member Bill Palmiscno earlier this month. Palmiscno, in turn, suggested it is time to consider more expansive options to address capacity concerns, like a long-abandoned expansion of Century Elementary. A public forum, he noted, would allow the district to assess public support for more capital projects and complete existing projects, such as the replacement of Viking Elementary's relocatable classrooms. "I think we have to have the Viking relocatables eliminated before we ask people to leave a school and go to Viking, and, 'by the way, your child is going to be taught in a relocatable without a bathroom,'" Palmiscno said. Prompted by concerns like capacity challenges at the district's southern elementary schools, the boundary lines process has proven contentious since proposed maps were first unveiled at a pair of January public forums. Earlier this month, board members voted to delay plans to approve new boundary lines after a slate of proposed maps drew a divided public response. Critics asserted the maps did not address the city's long-term growth and even that the proposed borders perpetuated a class divide within Grand Forks. A majority of respondents to a Social Pinpoint survey conducted by RSP responded negatively to the proposed elementary and high school boundaries, according to data presented during Monday evening's meeting by demographer Rob Schwarz, while only four in 10 respondents favored the middle school boundaries. Update on fraud case Law enforcement has been able to recover more than half of the $2.2 million defrauded from Grand Forks Public Schools last summer, according to Business Manager Brandon Baumbach. Authorities were able to recover $1,296,935 of the more than $2 million defrauded from the district, and received an additional $100,000 payout from social engineering — otherwise known as phishing — insurance, Baumbach shared. That leaves the district with a net loss of $842,730, which was taken from the district's building fund in a fraudulent wire transfer on August 16.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
School Board accepts union petition to negotiate on behalf of non-teachers, rejecting attorney advice
Feb. 10—GRAND FORKS — Grand Forks School Board members voted Monday to accept a petition from a teachers union to negotiate on behalf of both classroom and non-classroom professionals. That means this spring, the Grand Forks Education Association will represent classroom teachers as well as school counselors, librarians, psychologists and speech pathologists when it sits down to hammer out a new two-year contract with the board. Following nearly an hour of discussion behind closed doors, the School Board approved the GFEA petition 8-1. "We've got work to do, but it feels like both sides are willing to do the work," said School Board President Dave Berger. In voting to accept the GFEA's petition, the board maintained a more than two-decades-old practice of negotiating with the union on behalf of licensed school staff (administrators have their own bargaining groups) and rejected a lawyer's recommendation to refuse to negotiate in light of a state Supreme Court ruling that found non-classroom staff do not meet the statutory definition of "teacher." Rachel Bruner, an attorney with Pearce Durick PLLC retained by the school district, had recommended the School Board reject the GFEA's petition following the high court's ruling in Fargo Education Association v. Fargo Public Schools last November. The court had determined that school psychologists employed by that district were not considered teachers under state law, meaning school districts were not obligated to engage in collective bargaining with them or other licensed staff who did not primarily work in a classroom. According to the latest state Employee Compensation Report, Grand Forks Public Schools employed 75 licensed staff who were not teachers last school year, including counselors, psychologists, library media specialists and speech pathologists. Bruner's recommendation was met with outrage by union members, who packed Monday's School Board meeting ahead of the board's verdict on the GFEA petition. More than 50 members crowded the board's main conference room as well as an overflow room. Current and former members of GFEA leadership raised concerns about members losing their bargaining rights and other protections under the negotiated agreement. "We know everyone who works with a student in our district, whether in a classroom or not, is an educator," said Dawn Mord, a teacher and member of GFEA's negotiations team. In forceful remarks, former GFEA president and fellow negotiator Melissa Buchhop lamented union members' deteriorating trust in the school district and warned the board that rejecting the union's petition would lead to a "hostile and adversarial" atmosphere at the negotiating table this spring. "If you think there is language that needs to be changed, then you bring the proposal to the negotiating table," she said. "You don't reject our proposal that has already-agreed upon language and try to negotiate new language outside of negotiations." Following public comment, board members entered executive session to discuss the GFEA's petition among themselves and with Bruner, who Berger said called into the meeting. Board members ultimately sided with the GFEA over their attorney's recommendation, but left the door open for the bargaining rights question to come up again. Berger said he was looking forward to sitting down at the negotiating table with the GFEA this fall. He emphasized that union representation of non-teachers was not a settled matter, however. "We're talking about this board's decision for this bargaining unit for this round of negotiations," he said, adding, "there's no telling what a board two years from now will do, or would do." Past School Board President Amber Flynn also backed the GFEA petition, but asked for both sides to take a closer look at non-classroom staff during negotiations and said the school district needed more "flexibility" to hire for certain positions. Board member Eric Lunn also said he has concerns about the district losing personnel with medical training to private employers offering higher salaries; Berger alluded to similar circumstances in a Friday conversation with the Herald. Sherryl Houdek was the sole board member to vote against the GFEA's petition. She raised a complaint about what she perceives as a lack of communication on the Fargo decision by state education associations like teachers' union North Dakota United, the North Dakota School Boards Association and the North Dakota Council of Educational Leaders. Houdek also took the GFEA to task, questioning how well the group represented all of its members' interests. "There are teachers that do not believe in what GFEA, or North Dakota United, does represent," she said. She later told the Herald she was referring to the union's ability to represent the non-teaching staff whose bargaining rights had come into question. In a text message, Buchhop wrote it was "unclear" what specific issues Houdek was referring to but that the GFEA remained committed to advocating for all staff covered under its agreement with the district. Representatives from the NDSBA and the NDCEL have both told the Herald in recent days that they have been in communication with school districts about the Fargo decision, though neither reported communicating directly with Grand Forks. NDSBA Executive Director Amy De Kok said the Fargo decision had been discussed in a negotiations seminar held by the school board association last week. Berger told the Herald Friday that as far as he was aware, no Grand Forks School Board members had attended the seminar. De Kok said the NDSBA has been encouraging school boards to discuss the Fargo decision with their bargaining units before attempting to change negotiations rules. "It's fair to say we are encouraging districts to have open discussions with their staff," said De Kok. Mike Geiermann, North Dakota United's general counsel, told the Herald on Monday afternoon that North Dakota United, NDSBA and NDCEL have shared the same messaging around the Fargo decision. "There are a couple of lawyers who disagree with that, and one of them is Rachel Bruner," Geiermann asserted. Bruner did not respond to a Monday afternoon voicemail left by the Herald.
