State representative Bjorn Olson attended the recent Blue Earth Area School Board meeting.

The Blue Earth Area School Board had a special guest at their meeting on Monday, Aug. 14.

State representative Bjorn Olson was at the meeting to get input from the board and answer questions about the recent legislative session.

He also had a question for the board members and administration present at the meeting.

“There were a lot of new mandates issued for school districts during the session,” he said. “What do you feel about that? I want to hear from you.”

Superintendent Mandy Fletcher answered by saying this is the first time, ever, that she is still giving the board legislative updates in August.

“We are still learning about the impact of all these mandates,” Fletcher said. “There is still a lot of material to go through.”

She added that it seems like the legislature does not trust local officials and is taking decisions away from local boards.

“They seem to want to micro-manage us,” Fletcher said. “But we know our kids and what they need.”

School Board member Ted Armon agreed.

“We are duly elected officials, but they (state legislature) are taking over our ability to govern our own district,” he said.

Rep. Olson agreed with those statements.

“I did think this was a severe overreach by the legislature,” he said. “I believe we should give you money and then you take it and do your job. You don’t need to be led by the hand.”

He added that he fought against all this mandating, but the effort was a failure.

In other business, the BEA Board:

• Heard a report from superintendent Fletcher that included information about the Facility Planning group. They have met and will meet again, and are looking at a lengthy list of projects, narrowing down the list with needs versus wants, and planning a community survey.

• Heard reports from all of the principals and the activities director, which mainly focused on the plans for back to school activities.

Those plans include new teacher orientation on Aug. 23-25, full staff orientation on Aug. 28-31, a picnic dinner and foam party on Sept. 5 for grades K-7, and Bucs Bash on Aug. 30.

Principal David Dressler also reported on changes in some protocols due to the recent state legislature directives.

He said the administration had already been working on eliminating confusion over practicing lockdowns but now will notify all parents of when a practice lockdown will be held, and if any parents want their child to not be in lockdown, they do not have to participate.

New activities director Travis Armstrong was one of the administrators to address the board and reported there are 212 students out for fall sports, down slightly from 228 last year. There are 25 full time coaches on the fall list.

• Approved the elementary, middle school and high school handbooks.

• Approved the fall coaches list with a few changes to some of the positions.

• Approved several personnel matters including: resignation of high school paraprofessional Wendy Nemanic, retirement of elementary paraprofessional Barb Backstrom effective Sept. 3, maternity leave of absence for Gianni Alm, new hires Ethan Davide high school ELA teacher, Trinity Seedorf high school math teacher starting January 2024, Tanner Nawrocki elementary/middle school physical education and approved a contract for Rachel Petersen.

• Had the first reading of 12 school policies, most of which were changes in wording in the policy due to changes mandated by the legislature.