It’s kind of hard to believe that summer is in the rear view mirror, but it is and the 2024 – 25 school year is off to a good start. In a fast paced meeting, the School Board got an overview of how the first week had gone and it is shaping up to be another busy, exciting year.
Sarah McDermid was introduced to the Board at Tuesday night’s meeting. McDermidt will be teaching Special Education at William Kelley School. She is a seasoned educator with experience in early childhood education, music, Spanish and parent education. She has a Masters degree in curriculum development and earned her English Second Language (ESL) certification while teaching in Costa Rica.
In other business, the Board approved a resolution accepting grant funding from IRRR in the amount of $150,000. These funds will be used to create a program with Lake County Ambulance Service to train interested high school students as EMTs, Firefighters and to introduce them to other first responder positions. The goal of this program is to recruit, train and retain area students to help fill the need for rural first responders and generate interest for those who are interested in a career as a first responder.
There was discussion about the upcoming budget / levy, payable in 2025. No action was taken at Tuesday night’s meeting, but School administrators are currently working on the budget and the Board decided to schedule a meeting for December 10th, 6:00 pm at Two Harbors High School, for presentation of the budget.
The Board approved two resolutions concerning girls hockey. The first was to dissolve the agreement of cooperation with MSHSL, girls hockey between Two Harbors and Silver Bay. That decision was followed up with a resolution approving a cooperative agreement for girls hockey that includes Two Harbors, Silver Bay and Marshall.
The Away For The Day cell phone policy has gotten off to a good start. Building Principals reported that they are seeing increased student engagement in the classroom and a greater level of student interaction in the lunchroom. There have been multiple news reports in the past two weeks from both local and national news outlets, saying that school districts that have implemented this, or other similar policies, are seeing improvements in behavior, engagement and actual learning when students can get out of the virtual world and can fully tune into their school environments.
The next Lake Superior School Board meeting is scheduled for October 8th at Two Harbors High School at 6:00 PM.
