At the Monday meeting of the Clarion-Goldfield-Dows Board of Education, Tony Miller, president of the Kids Korner Board of Directors, was present to update the school board on their progress as they work to move out of the elementary building. He said the project’s steering committee had narrowed down the search for a new facility to two existing buildings in town. However, when they had engineers walk through and estimate the cost of renovating the buildings, they discovered it would be more cost effective and allow more growth if they build a new facility. The steering committee is now in the process of looking for land and working with First Children’s Finance to create a business plan to move forward. In the past, the school board had given the daycare a May 2021 deadline to vacate the school.
In the superintendent’s report, Supt. Joe Nelson said he is very happy with how the first month of school has gone. Only two COVID cases have been reported among students and in-person classes have stayed in session the whole time. He also was pleased to report preliminary enrollment numbers show 952 students in K-12, which is an addition of 21 students. “That’s very encouraging given the landscape with COVID-19,” he said. “It’s a big endorsement of what our teachers and staff are doing.” He added that of the around 60 students who started out the year doing remote, online learning, over half of those students are back in the schools.
The board voted to not have the district participate in the executive payroll tax deferment. Payroll tax that is deferred would have to be paid back in the spring and it would be up to the employer to collect this from employees. Anita Frye noted that she had calls from employees who did not want to participate in the withholding. The Iowa Association of School Boards and CGD school auditors are advising to continue withholding as usual.
For staffing changes, the board accepted the resignations of Nick Willwerth as head baseball coach and Mindy Soper as nutritional aide. They approved employment contracts with Lori Swanson as TLC mentor, Kendra Lutcavish as Elem Para, Ashton Miller as HS Para, Jessica McVay for nutritional aide, Elizabeth Ennis for HS Head Girls Basketball coach, Alayna Watts for assistant dance coach and Jerry Schmitz for bus driver.
In other board business, they approved an application from Brenndan Hennigar for early graduation.
