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How many to have on staff?

By Staff | Apr 23, 2017

As the United South Central School Board sifted through the approval of employment and personnel changes for the end of the year, a question arose as to whether or not USC?was getting too administratively heavy.

The question was raised by multiple board members in regards to the 2017-18 staffing recommendations, specifically when it came to the full-time position of the School Resource Officer (SRO) and the potential addition of a full-time Community Education/dean of students position.

According to the information provided in the School Board packet, the SRO would stay full-time and the Community Education would be bumped from a part-time position to a full-time position with the additional responsibilities of an elementary dean of students.

The dean position would also be, for the majority of the time, focused towards elementary school students and assisting classrooms with behavioral concerns.

“Now, Mr. Kuechenmeister, he’s a full-time position, is his focus just high school students?” inquired board member Brad Heggen.

Superintendent Fleming responded by saying, in regards to USC activities director Joe Kuechenmeister, the director’s focus was mainly that of school activities and had some responsibilities of a dean which were focused on high school students. Fleming also mentioned USC’s SRO works to support elementary school behaviors, but traditionally does not address a lot of classroom issues.

“They usually help with truancy, child protection, and other larger concerns of that nature,” said Fleming.

“So what’s his (SRO’s) position like now?” asked board member Mike Schrader.

Fleming responded to the question by stating not only does Officer Ryan Murphey?(SRO) hold that position title, he also works with the School Attendance Review Board, truancy violations, ALICE (a new active shooter response implementation), Towards Zero Deaths traffic safety, child protection concerns, and the USC-based FariCares board focusing on alcohol abuse prevention.

“I guess my concern right now is, do we start getting worried about being too administrative-heavy?” asked Tom Legred. “We had high school principal, elementary principal and part-time police officer. Now we have two principals, a full-time SRO, a fulltime activities director, which Joe works really hard to get a lot done I want to compliment him on that but the idea was that he was going to be high school and elementary dean. That was in the original plan. Now we went to a full-time SRO. My point now is I’d like more information as to how we would be better off.”

Legred suggested hiring a part-time social worker to make up for the additional classroom behavioral concerns in the elementary.

“I’m not completely sold right now on changing the roles of the SRO and hiring another part-time dean.”

“Staying in our current FTE, the budget does balance at this point. If we continue to add teachers, we would not be staying true to that balance between teachers and administration,” said Fleming. “We also are hearing consistently there is a need for classroom management and behavioral assistance from our teachers.”

Fleming went on to say that with Kuechenmeister’s part-time assistance with high school students, teachers are seeing a positive improvement both in and outside of the classrooms.

“We are just looking for a little added assistance with the behavioral struggles we are having in the elementary,”?said Fleming.

Legred went on to suggest having the school social worker, Jennifer Crawford, possibly assist with behavioral issues, something both principals, Tracey Magnuson of the elementary and Kelly Schlaak of the high school, opposed.

“We would not want to put Jennifer in the position of confronting behavioral concerns because we want her to be seen as a safe person students can go to rather than a disciplinarian,” said Fleming.

The conversation to see a clear directive regarding the full-time position came to a standstill. Neither the board nor the administration could come up with a solution after around 15 minutes of discussion.

Board member Jon Feist intervened by requesting to table the discussion for a special meeting.

“This way we can have enough input from all parties and really analyze our options with regards to this community education/dean and SRO position,”?said Feist.

The board chose to set a special meeting for May 2 at 5:30 p.m. to discuss the duties of USC’s SRO, activities director, and dean of students.

The USC?School Board also:

Received updates from both the elementary and high school principals. Both mentioned MCA testing has begun and will continue on through mid-May.

Approved a sealcoat bid for the entire USC campus from Reynolds Services for $44,475.

Received a generous donation from local Bricelyn farmer Gary Hove, who won an award from the Monsanto Corporation. Fleming said Hove requested USC be the recipient of the $2,500 Hove earned.