School board accepts calendar

Cresco - The 2018-19 school calendar was accepted by the Howard-Winneshiek Community School District board at its regular meeting on March 12. 

Some of the information on the calendar is the start date of the 2018-19 school year as Aug. 23, 2018. The first semester will have 526.5 hours and ends before Christmas break. The second semester has 598 hours, for a total of 1,124.5 hours. That allows 44.5 hours of time off for weather or other reasons. All make-up hours will begin May 23. 

• In other items from the meeting, the four state wrestling qualifiers (Jacob Knutson, Colter Bye, Kaden Anderlik and Ryan Steffen, were congratulated by the board. Coach Slifka noted, “The biggest challenge of coaching is filling the 14 weight classes. We need to have kids in the right weight classes.”

The Girls’ Basketball Championship team will be congratulated at the April meeting.

• The district entered into a cooperative agreement with University of Northern Iowa for student teaching.

• Supt. Ted Ihns gave his report, which included students taking Iowa Assessments and hiring Andrea Malek as a long-term Special Education substitute.

The elementary students were to have a “Kids who Read ‘R’ COOL Show,” and author Robert Wolf had a writing workshop at the high school.

“We had two students selected to the All-State Speech Team. Rielynn Thompson and Raymond Himli will go to UNI on March 24,” Ihns said. In addition there were a few concerts.

• Instructional coaches Kim Kerian, Kelly Sorenson and Heather Suckow reported on what they do for teachers and students. 

The three coaches give advice and work collaboratively with teachers in trying to make their class time better for students and instructors alike.

The trio help with classroom management, including giving instructions for room arrangements and expectations. They assist with classroom instruction by helping teachers engage students, provide meaningful activities, lesson modeling and differentiation strategies. 

They can provide feedback on student behavior and classroom environment. All three coaches are very enthusiastic about how their role at H-W CSD helps make it a better place to learn.

• The fees for 2018-19 school year stayed the same, although Board President Duane Bodermann joked they could be raised since he will no longer have students in the district next year! The other board members, with younger children, did not agree.

• Many board policies were approved for the second reading. There were very few changes. Board policies were also approved for the first reading.

• The project for resurfacing the high school parking lot and updating the baseball and softball fields was tabled due to the large price tag. The board asked to have the project broken down and will consider the project at the next meeting.

• A $25,000 3-D building scan of the district was approved. 

• The board approved a swimming agreement with Decorah High School. There are four students participating on the swim team.

• MAPS testing at a cost of $12,357.50 was approved.

• Category 1 and Category 2 funding for technology were approved.

• Also discussed at the meeting was a bullying issue brought up in open forum by three individuals.