Nate Boyer from the intermediate school gave a “Intermediate Rocks” presentation to kick off Monday’s Becker School Board meeting.
Boyer began his presentation by explaining what “Intermediate Rocks” is, then gave a school-wide matrix followed by recognizing the program at a ceremony.
Boyer said the purpose of Intermediate Rocks is to provide students and staff a platform for Becker school’s response to behavior and self-monitoring through classroom management, explicit teaching, modeling, communication, interventions and restoration.
Boyer said teachers manage their classrooms by creating a community with rituals, routines and procedures and explicitly teach students to show respect to all adults in the community when a reasonable request is given, regardless if the adult is their direct teacher. Occasionally, he says, students may need support from the administration team.
Some of the behaviors facing students and staff are cheating, lying, defiance, disrespect, non-compliance, disruption, inappropriate language, name calling, aggression, physical contact, physical damage, property misuse and theft.
The acronym, ROCKS, refers to Respect, Ownership, Choices that are right, Kindness and Safety.
For recognition, tickets are earned by students and collected by the classroom teacher. Upon receiving tickets, students fill them out and place them into a classroom bucket.
Each full week of school, students are recognized in each of the grade level classrooms by teachers pulling a ticket out of the ticket bucket and students are randomly selected as intermediate rocks winners for that week.
Supt. Update
Supt. Jeremy Schmidt recognized Taylor Larson as serving as the student representative on the school board this year.
Schmidt said the website is live with information related to the upcoming operating levy renewal. He mentioned there were public presentations on Oct. 21 and Oct. 29. Information has been shared with the newspaper, mailings went out to taxpayers and were updated on the district website and school social media accounts. Voting took place Tuesday and an article on the results of the election can be found elsewhere in today’s Citizen-Tribune.
Schmidt mentioned there will be a school board gathering Nov. 12 at 5:30 p.m. to canvass the election.
Schmidt told the board all interested school board members are registered for the MSBA Conference Thur., Jan. 16 and Fri., Jan. 17. The theme this year is “Learning from the past; Leading into the future”. Schmidt said it is an excellent professional development opportunity and he encourages board members to attend.
“We have signed up all board members who indicated they would like to attend,” he said. “If you cannot attend, please notify me by Fri., Dec. 6 so that we can cancel your room at no charge to the district.”
Schmidt said he has submitted a school of excellence presentation application for the B3: Build Better Bulldogs leadership program.
“We are waiting to hear back from MSBA,” he said.
Schmidt reminded the board and those in attendance and those watching online that Veteran’s Day programs will be conducted in the schools Nov. 11.
The high school program will be at 8:30 a.m., middle school is at 9:30 a.m. in the PAC. The intermediate school and primary school will also have their own programs. The high school robotics team will provide a breakfast for Veterans before the program.
“Thanks to Becker Lions for their support.,” said Schmidt. “Thanks also to the Becker American Legion Color Guard for presenting the colors.”
Other Action Taken by the Board:
• Approved the consent agenda which included the October board meeting minutes, the October financial report, personnel changes for November, gifts for November, a resolution establishing polling locations and adopting a digital learning day plan;
• Adopted the mandated reporting of child neglect policy;
• Adopted the internet use policy;
Adopted the superintendent goals.
Up Next
The next Becker School Board meeting is Dec. 2 at 6:30 p.m.
