September’s regular Becker School Board meeting took place Sept. 13 due to Labor Day. The meeting kicked off with presentations from NWTA and Dylan’s Hope.

Open Forum

Northwest Talent Academy (NWTA) presented to the board. NWTA is offered to gifted students grade 2-8. They offer programming to these students during the summer. They hoped to bring some of this advanced programming closer to the community, in Monticello. The presenters reported on their curriculum from this year and its success. 

Currently, NWTA is in a partnership with eight local communities, but are looking to add many more soon.

Dylan’s Hope representatives spoke next. They broke their previous record for the number of participants in their annual golf tournament this year with 250 golfers attending, and so were able to raise a lot of money for their cause of ending teenage suicide. They put money towards four track scholarships. They will be helping to bring a gold medalist to speak to the students (name not given.) Dylan’s Hope also donated to Greater Minnesota’s Spirited Adventures, which creates programming for Sherburne county students. Dylan’s Hope purchased kayaking equipment for the group this year. Greater Minnesota matched the donations given by Dylan’s Hope.

Betsy Armstrong also spoke during open forum to request that a rebuttal presentation be made for the board in response to the Out Front Minnesota presentation made at an upcoming meeting. She also protested against having teachers ask for students’ preferred pronouns, claiming it was an infringement on their privacy.

Superintendent’s Report

Students Kayla and Madeline will be representing the student body this year. Both are members of the student council as well as members of several other sports and clubs. 

The school foodservice staff recently took a trip to partner Norm’s Farm Market. The school hopes to work with Norm’s as much as possible, and purchase as much as Norm’s can supply.   

Absentee voting for the referendum opened Sept. 17. Eligible voters are able to vote during normal business hours at the school. An open house about the referendum will be held Oct. 12 at the high school commons (next to the Performing Arts Center). More information is available at BulldogsStrong.com. 

The board to hoping to schedule a presentation from Minnesota Family Council, which may come in the form of a special hearing. The date will be announced when it is decided.

All of the ESSER and CARES funding given to the school has been spent. The funding was used toward amplification systems in elementary classrooms, updating servers and hotspots, more busses, and other items. 

Supt. Jeremy Schmidt attended a meeting at the Refuge Bar and Grill for concerned citizens who wished to know more about Critical Race Theory, or CRT. 

“[I attended] that meeting just to hear what it was all about, because we don’t teach Critical Race Theory in our school,” Schmidt said. 

Curriculum Committee

Mark Swanson reported on his recent meeting with the Curriculum Committee. He, along with Cindy Graham, wanted to reiterate that the school does not have a lot of direct control over the curriculum standards, and though many concerned parents have been reaching out to the school board, there is nothing they can do about changing or maintaining the curriculum. Concerned parents will have more of an impact submitting their comments directly to the Minnesota Dept. of Education or to their legislators. The two went on to invite anyone who wanted to come to the curriculum committee meetings to ask as many questions as they had and create a discussion about the issues.

Fundraising

The board had a long discussion on the process of fundraising for different school clubs and sports, especially the proper way to treat funds coming from booster clubs. Several board members were concerned about booster clubs raising money to buy equipment and other items for school organizations, and whether it was appropriate, legally, to have the board officially recognize those donations, making the donated equipment school property. They asked Supt. Schmidt to look further into the issue. 

In Other Business, the Board:

• Approved an increase in health insurance rates;

• Made a general fund transfer to the areas of School Readiness ($75,000), Early Childhood ($6,000), and Community Education ($30,000);

• Reviewed school policies to match Minnesota School Board Association (MSBA) standards (these will be adopted at a later meeting);

• Changed the November regular meeting to take place after the referendum election, so the board has the chance to canvas the votes, and furthermore stipulated that all regular meetings in November take place after the first Tuesday so as not to run into the issue again;

• Approved a preliminary levy, which will be officially approved at the truth in taxation meeting in December (the preliminary levy is not expected to be an accurate representation of the actual levy at this time).