With the resignation of one of United South Central’s paraprofessionals, consideration for eliminating a second paraprofessional position was made only slightly easier for the USC School Board last Tuesday, May 15.

During the board’s conversation regarding contracts, leave requests and resignations, they accepted the resignation of Tiffany Husfeldt effective at the end of the year. After accepting her resignation, the board continued discussion on the second paraprofessional position getting slashed.

“We’ve been discussing administratively and have met with our special education coordinators with the staff and we believe it is best to eliminate two paraprofessional positions,” said USC Superintendent Keith Fleming. “We already have received one resignation, so we will just need to eliminate one more paraprofessional position.”

With no further discussion on the subject, a motion was made by Mike Schrader and the board agreed with the motion with no opposition.

Later on, the board discussed approving the concept of consolidating the Southern Plains Education Cooperative to one site in Fairmont. Schrader made the motion to approve the concept with Tom Legred seconding the motion.

In discussion, Brad Heggen noticed Schrader’s immediate motion.

“Mike, you are on the SPEC?facilities board and you made the motion, you must feel fairly strongly about this change in facilities and consolidation,” said Heggen.

“I am on the facilities committee and we looked through many options to see what was best for all of our students in the district,” Schrader said. “We feel this is the best situation. It is a bit of a further drive for our students, but the facilities in Winnebago are in total disrepair.”

With the approval of the motion to approve the concept of consolidating the education programs, the board moved onto approving the revised joint powers agreement with Southern Plains Education Cooperative facility in Fairmont, to which there was no discussion, and a motion was formally passed.

The USC School Board also:

Scheduled a special board meeting for June 5, at 7 p.m. in the Community Education room at USC in regards to approving potential school security upgrades as well as the sale and replacement of the K-4 student one to one devices.

“The iPads the students use at this point do not have updates for the current programs we use, so we will be looking at selling the iPads and potentially purchasing new one to one devices for the students,” said Fleming.

Opened bids for milk and bread for the 2018-19 school year.

Approved changes to the 2018-19 high school and elementary student handbooks in regards to the elementary’s dress code pertaining to length of shorts and skirts, as well as the high school’s dress code on hate symbols.