School board approves 2024-25 calendar

The Tea Area school board met Dec. 11 and approved the 2024-25 school calendar.

School is scheduled to start Aug. 20 in 2024 and end May 20 in 2025 with graduation May 17. The calendar will have 173 student contact days for the year.

Superintendent Jennifer Lowery said more than 112 individuals that sponsored 216 students for the angel tree project.

The district held its second Network of Improvers in November.

In the business manager report, operations manager Wayne Larsen reported on development with the district’s boundaries. Between 2021 and 2026, they estimate a total of 786.55 future students. The average growth in student numbers over the last five years has been 104.3. Next month they will look at school building capacity and land development.

Business manager Chris Esping provided the board with the five-year plan. For the plan, they projected 100 additional students per year from now through 2028-29. The big picture projection included possible budget needs, transportation needs, activities and teacher and staffing needs.

In the operations report, Larsen reported on work at the high school. The science wing has moved along. The locker room expansion areas are ready for the masons who plan to return within the next two weeks. They are running into problems getting steel. Over the break, they will be working on some smaller projects in other district buildings like new lockers in Legacy and replacing some acoustical tiles in the high school locker rooms.

The board approved the Safe Return to School Review required for federal funding every six months they have to approve the plan. 

They had green, yellow and red levels. Now green and yellow levels are the same since they are not tracking the cases.

They approved the second readings of Policy ACAB, the district’s policy on bullying. The changes to the policy include adding the use of the anonymous reporting platform, Safe2Say. They also approved Policy KJA, the district’s policy on the Titan logo. The policy would require prior approval for all community members and vendors to use the log.

The board approved the resignations of Katie Jensen as colorguard tech and the retirement of Jamie Ihnen for STEM at the end of the school year.

They approved the new hires of Mallory Keiser as a nurse and David Sieler as custodian supervisor.

Lowery thanked Justin Henderson and crew for painting new lines on the Venture Elementary playground. She also thanked the anonymous donor for middle school band, middle school STEM and high school welding.

Lowery provided the board with the results from the employee engagement survey.