The Heartland FFA members who attended the FFA National Convention made a presentation to the Board on Monday night – Heartlandbeat photo
Attending: Heartland administrators, Superintendent Jeremy Klein, High School Principal Tim Carr, and Elementary Principal Dana Reinke. Three patrons attended the meeting, and FFA sponsor Mrs. Miller and seven FFA members attended during their presentation to the board.
Board members present: Lacey Gloystein, Ryan Goertzen, Jen Hiebner, Jeb Mierau, Tyler Newton, and Tammy Ott
The Heartland School Board met for its regular meeting on Monday, December 8 at 7 p.m. They had a relatively light agenda and heard a report from the seven Heartland FFA students who recently attended the National Convention in Indianapolis. They presented a PowerPoint presentation and told the board what they learned at the workshops, tours, and sessions they attended.
Superintendent Jeremy Klein reported to the board on the district’s statewide testing results and provided data on the district’s overall performance, which he said was great. Click here to see the testing summary.
Klein provided a Fall Sports Summary of the sports coop update and said the coop team from both schools is still meeting regularly to iron out any details. “I think we are off to a good start with the coop. After the end of fall sports, we held a fall coaches meeting to review how it went and identify areas for improvement. We got some really positive feedback,” said Klein.
He said the most significant challenges so far have been maintaining effective communication and addressing logistical issues.
Mierau raised the question of “How well do you think we are following the original comprehensive coop agreement?”
“I think pretty well. I can foresee changes as we progress. Right now, we are trying to be fair, and I can see down the road we might do things differently,” replied Klein. Mierau stated that he had received criticism from a few patrons because the school didn’t provide transportation for students to practice in Hampton during Thanksgiving break and on weekends.
Klein replied that it was never their intent to mislead anyone, but the school has never provided transportation on weekends or breaks for students’ practice. Newton stated that these are called extracurricular activities for a reason, and it was noted that students living in the Bradshaw area have always provided their own transportation to practice at Heartland when school wasn’t in session.
“We never thought this sports cooperative would be perfect, and I appreciate the continued revisiting of how we can do things better by the coop team,” said Ott. Gloystein added that, as a parent of students in sports, she has seen many positive attitudes and successes in the coop’s progress.
Superintendent Klein gave a building/construction update and said there were no certified claims to pay this month until Hausmann completes the punch list. He is negotiating with Hausmann about some of the playground equipment that was removed and reinstalled but is now unusable. Klein said they may consider doing a complete playground rennovation and just demo the unusable playground equipment if they can come to an agreement with Hausmann. There was also a discussion of the charges for the change order to move the transformer.
The playground equipment that is unusable – Heartlandbeat photo
In other action, the board accepted Ben Lindsay’s resignation, who is the 8-12th-grade social studies teacher and football coach, effective at the end of the 2026 school year.
The board reviewed the job description for the nurse’s position and asked where the nurse would be located in the school. Klein said right now, they were thinking room #2 in the elementary wing would be a central location with accessible restrooms.
“I think this has been needed for a very long time. The staff has done a good job, but we need a nurse to handle so many of these health-related decisions,” said Ott. The motion to approve the job description and advertise for the position was passed by the board 6-0.
At 8:02 p.m., the board entered into a closed session to discuss the superintendent evaluation.
The next school board meeting will be on Monday, January 12, 2026.
