Loyal School Board Approves Memorandum of Understanding with Eau Claire Community Foundation
Monday, August 5th, 2024 -- 8:01 AM
The Loyal School Board approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Eau Claire Community Foundation at their recent meeting.
This was for the district’s Financial Literacy program. Sue Bornich of the ECCF, talked about the district’s program. Sue also presented a check for $65,000 to cover the second half of the program for the 2023-24 school year. District Administrator Chris Lindner gave a huge thank you to the Hill Family and the foundation for all they have done for our students.
The second item of new business was the board approved the new phone and paging system as the current paging system has had issues where announcements cannot be made throughout the building and this becomes a safety issue. The phone and paging system will cost $29,616 with installation being $2,500. This upgrade will save the district $20,000 over the next 10 years.
The board approved to purchase the new district security camera system server upgrade. The current server has had issues and has had times of going down. This becomes a safety issue for the district. The cost of the new server is $14,314, with an upgrade in software costing $7,159 and installation costing $5,000.
The board approved that each employee receives $212 from the savings of our health insurance. The district’s health insurance increase for the 24-25 school year was projected to be 9.5% but came in at 8.2%, which provided a savings that will be distributed evenly to the staff members. The district also has an agreement with the Clark County Community Services to allow them to use a space in our building to advocate for our students.
The board took action on reducing the number of bus routes that the district has from five to four. This will have little impact on transportation times and save the district $12,500. The board approved the bus contract with the Greenwood Bus Company for 2024 through 2029.
The board discussed the new regulations regarding Title IX. A motion was made to currently monitor the litigation of this law in the court system. Once litigation has been resolved the board will then revisit the policy revision.
The board tabled the approval of the Neola policies of Bylaws and Administration. The board wants the Policy Committee to go through these two sets of policies and then bring them back for board approval. The board also approved both the Teacher and the Support Staff Handbooks.
The board approved changes to the 2024-25 school calendar that Friday, October 11th is now a student day and the professional development day for teachers that was scheduled for Friday, October 11th , is now Thursday, October 24th . This will make Homecoming Week the week of October 6th through October 11th, with the Homecoming Football Game on Friday, October 11th.
When making the calendar there were no dates for Homecoming because the two home games that they have are September 27th and October 11th and on both of those dates the District has professional development days with no students.
The board approved MOU agreement partnering with Security Health Plan for school-based services. This is a benefit paid for by the Wisconsin Medicaid Program for all school enrolled recipients.
The School District of Loyal will be following the Wisconsin State Standards for the curriculum standards for the 2024-25 school year. The Board also heard an update on the summer projects including:
- The National Lunch Program Grant dishwasher has been installed and the old one removed;
- Inside concession stand had new cabinets installed;
- The Business Room has been remodeled with LED lights, new ceiling, new flooring, and new cabinets;
- The district office, both H.S. Math Rooms, Health and H.S Social Science rooms have new LED lights;
- The auto lift is being updated;
- Boiler projects continue to be completed;
- The main condensate tank in the boiler room has been delivered and is being installed;
- The condensate tank in the book room is here and ready to be installed;
- There was a section of brick on the east side of the elementary school, between elementary office and the First and Second grade rooms, that had water/frost issues with a portion of the outside exterior wall, part of this wall was replaced;
- The roofs of the three outlying buildings, Vater Hall, Lion Shelter, and the three-car garage, have been replaced with metal roofs;
- The main building roofs were postponed due to weather and are scheduled to be completed in September, the plan to start the concession stand, weather permitting, will be within the next two weeks.
The board was updated on the 2023-24 final budget and informed that the auditors were onsite July 11th and July 12th . They are in the process of finalizing the audit.
The proposed budget for the 2024-25 is in the beginning stages as teacher’s materials have been ordered and they are working with the maintenance and IT departments to finalize their budgets.
The board was updated by the Strategic Plan Committee. The District Administrator has contacted two companies to facilitate the district’s strategic plan. He is working with them to set up a time to meet.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.