All school board members were present at last Monday’s meeting: Lacey Gloystein, Ryan Goertzen, Jen Hiebner, Tammy Ott, Jeb Mierau, and Tyler Newton. Administrators present were Superintendent Jeremy Klein and Elementary Principal Dana Reinke. There were eight patrons present at the meeting.
Here are some highlights from the loaded agenda at the Heartland School Board’s regular meeting on Monday night, July 14. Click on this link for the FULL AGENDA.
Superintendent Klein reported on the progress of the H&H co-op meetings, focusing on transportation, flexibility, and scheduling games and practices. He believes the co-op will provide more developmental opportunities for the kids at their different skill levels. He commended both ADs, Josh Struckman and Carson Klute, for their hard work making this possible with the scheduling of more freshman and reserve games.
On August 5, an informational session will be held for parents, featuring all coaches in attendance and a special guest speaker. Sports pass pricing was presented after working with Hampton to ensure consistency. Passes will work at either school and for each program’s high school football games. Senior citizens will receive free admission.
A Fall Kick-Off Event is planned for Monday, August 18, at Hampton, with food trucks serving food starting at 6:30 p.m. The event will include coaches’ introductions, music, the H&H Cheerleaders, and is expected to be a fun evening. The traditional “Back to School” night date was discussed, with Klein recommending the event be delayed this year. No final date was chosen at the meeting.
Klein reported on the progress of the Heartland Parent Group, which he has been working to establish. For now, it will be called the Heartland Parents Auxiliary. More information will be available as it is in the early stages of development, said Klein.
CONSTRUCTION REPORT
As expected, the “summer construction schedule is tight with not much room for error,” but Klein said they are making steady progress. “We should see substantial completion by August 1, but our biggest hurdle is getting the State Fire Marshal to sign off on it.”
The board spent time discussing the issue of the discolored concrete flooring in the concession, locker, and training room areas. It was decided that the leftover flooring from the hallway will be used to cover the concrete in the concessions area, and an epoxy will be used to cover the concrete in the locker and training rooms.
The board has been working for a few months on the exterior soffit replacement project, which includes the application of spray foam insulation on the south side of the school. Klein presented the final estimates from Hausmann. After all the location revisions for the job, the quote from Hausmann was $109,343.66. Here is the link to the revised bid.
Board member Jeb Mierau expressed that the bid was too high and he “didn’t understand their pricing.” He then presented two quotes he had obtained on his own from Old Glory Roofing and Prellwitz Exteriors that were considerably less than the Hausmann bid.
The board discussed whether the bids he obtained were comparable to the Hausmann bid, the timeframe for completion, and why he chose these two companies for the bids. Other discussions by the board included whether the school was required to obtain multiple bids for this project and the additional project management fees by Hausmann.
*Click on this link for more detailed information about the soffit project from last month’s meeting.
Chairman Tyler Newton stated that Mierau wasn’t authorized to obtain these bids, and the board recommended that the building committee consider the matter. It was placed on the agenda for August’s meeting.
CELL PHONE POLICY
Heartland’s cell phone policy once again took up considerable discussion at the meeting. During the public forum, two patrons, Alyssa Bartek and Kendall Siebert, both spoke about their concerns regarding students’ cell phone use.
*Click here for last month’s discussion of cell phone use.
Currently, Heartland students are allowed to use their phones during the lunch period. “The reason for keeping this policy is for students to have an opportunity to communicate with families. We respect the need for families today who rely on this as a means of communicating. We realize parental access is a problem for some and feel this policy is a balance,” said Klein.
Ryan Goertzen stated that he wants to see a consistent policy for kids, teachers, and paras. Jen Hiebner expressed a desire to see cell phone use eliminated during lunchtime. Mierau said he could see both sides of the issue, as he often needed to communicate with his kids before 3:30, but understood the concerns about cell phones.
Mr. Carr will continue working on the revised language for the cell phone policy in the student handbook.
TRANSPORTATION TO AND FROM HAMPTON
The board spent considerable time discussing whether they needed to institute a policy concerning students being allowed to drive themselves to practice from Heartland to Hampton and then home. This was brought up because a number of students live closer to Hampton, and the inconvenience of being bussed back to Heartland and then having to backtrack home.
Newton said he wanted to wait before creating a new policy to see how it all works and what problems arise. They discussed the potential issues associated with students driving themselves, including no-shows, tardiness, and difficulties for coaches in keeping track of students. Klein will begin working on a preliminary draft for a future policy.
LIVESTREAMING OF SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS
The board took up the agenda item of whether to livestream their meetings again this month. Mierau, who has advocated for livestreaming, stated that he believes the benefits of sharing information with the public outweigh any potential problems for the board. He noted that schools across Nebraska are using livestreaming at their meetings, and in the state of Oregon, it has become a requirement.
“I think this will open us up to all sorts of litigation, and I see potential problems of being sued and exposure nationally. We may be opening ourselves up to things we don’t even know about yet. If the livestreaming isn’t working, we have to stop our meeting,” said Goertzen. He later said he was a “hard no” for livestreaming the meetings.
Gloystein said she wasn’t interested in livestreaming their meetings at this time, and Ott said she had many unanswered questions before she would agree to moving on.
Newton put it on the agenda for next month.
FUTURE BOARD MEETINGS SCHEDULED
The next regular meeting will be held Monday, August 11, at 7 p.m., with the Finance Committee meeting at 6 p.m. A special budget workshop meeting will be held on August 25 to close out the fiscal year.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:01 p.m.
