Bremen School Board holds April meeting
BREMEN — On Wednesday, April 10, the Bremen School Board held its April meeting.
The meeting began with the board approving the consent agenda. This included three resignations, two new contracts, two terminations and one new volunteer.
After approving this, Superintendent Dr. Jim White gave his monthly enrollment report. He let the board know that the school’s enrollment has continues to dip down. He said that he believes this is pretty normal for the school at this time of the year. He does not think the school should be worried.
Along with enrollment the schools cash balance has also gone done a bit. White explained that this is due to the repay month. Part of this payment was for the construction that the school has had. The press box is now all paid off.
White was asked if the cash balance was following a similar trend from previous years, he said that it was.
Mr. Yelaska the Principal of the Bremen Elementarymiddle School, and Mr. Rhode, the Principal of the Bremen High School, were the next to give reports.
Yelaska was the first to give his report. He talked about how the school went to spring break and came back to a solar eclipse. He added that the teachers did a great job helping the kids understand the eclipse.
He also showed appreciation to White for purchasing protective glasses for everyone.
Ilearn’s window will be opening up on Monday. First grade will not test till Thursday. They have been doing practice to make sure the system is ready.
Kindergarten Round Up will be on Wednesday, April 17. Yelaska reminded parents to register.
Rhode then came before the board to give his report. He started by talking about how the school play Annie went well. 18 new students joined the National Honors Society.
Juniors at the school recently were able to take the ACT, the school had paid for them to be able to do this.
Rhode and Amber Reed spoke to the Bremen Chamber of Commerce earlier in the day to tell them more about their internships.
He expects the master schedule to be completed within the month.
On Thursday, April 18 at 8:25 the school will host a leadership breakfast. He invited the entire board.
Multilingual proficiency tests are also coming up at the school. Students will take this to become certified as bilingual in English and Spanish.
A college and career fair will be coming to the high school on Thursday, April 25 and all of the schools juniors and seniors will be attending.
Senior awards will be held on May 2. Tuesday, May 7 the high school will host the primary.
Rhode was asked what kind of support he was looking for with the internship program. He said it was just an awareness from businesses that they may reach out to for students to intern at.
The meeting then shifted to the approval of text book adoption. Mrs. Hassel, the Curriculum Director at Bremen, came before the board to speak about this.
She had made a list of all the materials that the school was using for instruction. This includes hard materials and online materials. She had highlighted new materials that would be new to the budget. An example of this was music books.
Hassel then talked about items that would need to be renewed or purchased. She shared that the state did not send money for science or health. They kept all the purchase information and requested the materials this year. They had found a six year adoption for some of this.
Integrated chemistry and physics had a book selected but were told they were not sure if that's what they wanted. They are still looking.
This year's cycle is fine arts and practical arts. Hassel said that most of K-8 have this covered but a lot needs done for the high school.
Agriculture books needed updated, the instructor will be trained how to teach this
New pathways are being opened, as this grows, more supplies are needed. They have hospitality services, a hospitality pathway and they are getting a fashioned apparel class and food science.
A music theory class will help students tune their ears, reach perfect pitch, help with different chords and allow them to record themselves.
For renewals they will renew the Quaver program. Social studies are looking to bring Newsela to the high school. They were able to get a rental for this for the whole school. They did this for reading plus too.
White said that this list is important to see the expenses. All of this will be moved into the education fund. A sub fund will be made to make it easier to follow the funds.
The board approved the text book adoption as presented.
After this the board approved three donations. The first was for $1,000 to the High School Art show from Psi Iota Xi. The second was $1,100 for student lunch accounts. The third was $1,000 for the baseball/ softball programs from Alfredo Alvarado/zimmer Biomet Corp. The board shared thanks for these donations.
Overnight FFA trips to the State Livestock from May 17 to 18, the State Convention from June 18 to 20 and the National Convention from Oct. 23 to 26. These trips were all approved.
White then spoke about a program that the United Way is working on. A program has been done state wide in Michigan so the Indiana United Way is trying to follow this. This program is trying to take the working poor who struggle to pay for day care. They are trying to find people in the gaps. The United Way would use a grant to pay for one third of the childcare. They are asking employers to pay a third of the childcare so then the employees would only have to pay the remaining third.
A survey was sent out and found that the school had six to eight that could qualify. This would have them having to pay about $15,000 annually.
He thinks that parents should not be able to pick the day care that children go to as the school has its own daycare.
This is just a pilot program, the state could possibly fund it, this is how it is done in Michigan now.
The next Bremen School Board meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 8 at 6:30 p.m. in the High School Media Center.