Verndale School Board: Class sizes capped, Pixellot camera now streaming games
by Trinity Gruenberg
The Verndale School Board held their regular meeting on January 6, beginning with the organizational meeting.
Marcus Edin remains the board chair; Bill Blaha, vice chair; Tony Stanley, clerk; and Scott Veronen as treasurer.
School board compensation remained the same: $80 per regular board meeting, $10 additional for the board chair and $60 per extra and committee meetings. They approved a $10 increase in board compensation to $100 for meetings over five hours.
Second Revision of 2020 Budget
Business Manager Jordan Anderson reviewed budget revision two with a projected general fund increase of $443,006. Anderson added that the proposed auditorium remodel has not been figured in and suggested a third revision in April.
Food service has a projected decrease of $7155, community service has a projected increase of $2250 and debt service has a projected increase of $2148.
Student Enrollment Capped
Superintendent Paul Brownlow explained they currently have 55 seventh graders. He discussed this with Pillager and Menahga as well as the Department of Education gathering information about open enrollment at the Verndale School.
This would not affect students that live in the district, only open enrollment once the cap is filled. They approved the cap for seventh grade at 56 students effective January 20.
They also approved to cap all class sizes for all grades at 56 beginning next school year.
If the grade is at capacity, applications would be put into a lottery system for the remaining spots with no guarantee that faculty’s children or siblings of existing students would get in. . . .