School board recognized for dedicated service to students

HURON — The Huron School District was awarded a silver level board achievement at the recent Associated School Boards of South Dakota (ASBSD) meeting and award presentation, which was discussed at the School Board meeting held Monday evening.
School Board vice president Tim Van Berkum shared with the board, “our district was presented with ASBSD’s Act Learn Lead (ALL) recognition program, designed to recognize school boards for their dedicated and ethical service to the students of South Dakota.”
Activities in these categories include attending meetings or conventions, participating in board member training opportunities, leadership events and training.
Huron School District achieved 410 points and was awarded the silver level board achievement.
Superintendent Terry Nebelsick highlighted that a letter of clarification was sent out to more than 400 staff members explaining that meals will not be withheld from students and that strategies will be developed between staff and administrators to determine the consequences of inappropriate student conduct.
“The bottom line with the decision to withhold meals from students comes from staff not understanding expectations and that falls on me, so just to share with you the letter of clarification that went out to all staff members explained our protocol that the actual meals served will be available to all students regardless of conduct or financial issues - the location of eating those meals is subject to appropriate student conduct, staff will receive a specific directive from a school administrator before changing the venue and time for a meal, district staff will work closely with administrators on the issues of student conduct and consequences,” Nebelsick explained. “There will be no connection between redirecting or correcting student behavior and the opportunity to eat breakfast or lunch.
I believe that students’ meals were a consequence at the beginning of last week and I believe that the information that teachers shared with parents indicated that breakfast was not going to be allowed and that is against our protocol. On behalf of the district I apologize to the parents and I hope we can move forward.”

A presentation was given by head of Agriculture Mike Postma, where it was highlighted that the National FFA Convention will take place from Tuesday, Oct. 29, to Friday, Nov. 1, in Indianapolis.
“We are taking seven students this year, when we are there we will be doing a lot of agriculture tours. We get the automotive, the agriculture and the livestock at the tours, and at the actual convention they have a career expo which has every agriculture college in the country represented there,” Postma noted. “To me that is the highlight of the trip to get to expose the students to all of the different career opportunities in agriculture.”
Other fun activities include attending a professional rodeo, and a visit to one of the largest haunted houses in the United States, which stretches across 40 acres of land.
High School Band Director James Stueckrath made a request to the board that activities passes are not to be used during the indoor marching band exhibition fundraiser at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28, at the Huron Arena.
“Partially because the fundraiser helps out our music parents organization and cover our biggest expenses,” Stueckrath noted.
The request was approved by the board to have the proceeds of the indoor marching band exhibition be used as a fundraiser.
First-grade teachers from the Buchanan K-1 Center gave a good news report to the board outlining “Differentiating Groups,” which uses a variety of learning methods for different students based on their needs and helping them to grow further in their education.
Each teacher outlined the different subjects where differentiated learning is being implemented including reading, writing, math and computing, as well as technology such as ABC Mouse that allows teachers to pick the level for each student to ensure every learners’ needs are being met.
Business Manager Kelly Christopherson brought to the attention of the board that the handrail installation at Huron Arena is on track and scheduled to be completed on Monday, Nov. 11.
The proposed changes to the branding guide were approved by the board after a second reading in old business. New to the board was the State of SD consultant contact and mentoring services as a part of the State Mentoring Program.
“We have one teacher involved in the program, mentoring a teacher in a neighboring district, this contract outlines what our teacher will be compensated for,” Christopherson said.
This was approved as the last item on the agenda for the meeting.