In the recent school board meeting, the Big Lake school board prepared for the end of the school year by discussing an interest survey to be sent out, student meals during the summer and for next year, graduation, and finding a new student representative. 

District Survey Review 

The schools will be sending out a community interest survey regarding facility needs for the school campus. The survey will be conducted by the Morris Leatherman company. They will be calling residents of the school district to ask for demographic information and opinions about the school’s needs. The board reviewed the questions that would be asked. 

Free Meals to Students

The school will be offering a program this summer, giving free meals to students. The USDA has also stated that they will once again be providing free meals to students for the next school year, as they did this year. 

The board elected to renew their contract with Chartwell to provide meals to the students. They are doing so without soliciting other bids, which they would be required to do in a normal year. Last year and this upcoming year the school has elected to take advantage of a waiver allowing them to avoid this process, since last year was very strange and they could not provide the necessary information to any other vendors in order to receive bids. This will be the school’s fifth year using Chartwell. 

ESSER Funding

The school district has received $835,989 in ESSER II funding and $1,877,512 in ESSER III funding. The first needs to be spent by Sept. 30, 2023, and the second by Sept. 30, 2024. 

Summer School

There will also be some funding by the federal government to help with summer school programs. 

The board also elected to lift the $37 per hour pay cap for the summer school teachers, to help attract teachers to teach summer school, as fewer and fewer teachers want to do so.

Student Rep Update

As the school year ends, Ella Dotzler will no longer be the student representative. The position is open to another entrepreneurial student, and Dotzler, with Supt. Tim Truebenbach, will pass down the goals for the position when it is once again filled. 

The student council is considering reorganizing its structure. Currently, there are representatives for all four classes in the high school. They hope reorganizing will create more interest from the student body and get more underclassmen in particular to participate.

Superintendent Report

Graduation will take place June 4. There are many questions about graduation, such as how many tickets each student would get for family members, Principal Dockendorf, from the graduation committee, was hesitant to answer. These questions will be answered for the students as soon as possible, but Dockendorf was hopeful that more restrictions would lift before the school had to make some official decisions.

The school could potentially be hosting a vaccination clinic, but the details have yet to be ironed out.

In Other Business, the Board:

• Renewed a resolution to help pay for Wright Technical Center facility needs, and agreement held before, and which other schools also participate;

• Approved a four-year contract with Vision Transportation that include an increasing pay scale over that time;

• Approved adding a dehumidification device to the middle school gymnasium;

• Reviewed program updates for the 2021-2022 school year.