The South Koochiching-Rainy River School Board Wednesday discussed options regarding its search for a Spanish language teacher.
Former Indus and Northome Schools Spanish language teacher Heidi Bessler recently resigned to take a position closer to her home in Bemidji.
“We’re just having a tough time finding a candidate for that,” Superintendent Jerry Struss told The Journal. “They’re hard to find — a lot of districts are looking to fill that position.”
The board discussed possibly advertising for other foreign language teachers such as German or French language teachers in case a Spanish language teacher is not found. Board members also discussed buying the time of a Spanish language teacher from another district or considering online instruction for the class. Struss said the main preference is to hire a full-time Spanish language teacher.
“The board would really like to fill that position right now,” Struss said. “That’s our No. 1 priority.”
The board also approved the hire of Travis Hensch as Northome School principal; JoAnn Parish as social studies teacher at Indus School; and Chelsey Reinarz as math teacher at Indus.
The board increased lunch prices by 10 cents to help offset the district’s food service budget deficit. Lunch rates for students in the reduced-price lunch program did not increase — those are set by federal guidelines.
“The reason for the increase was that it’s been a number of years — 10 or more years — that we haven’t increased lunch prices,” Struss said.
The board approved an 25-cent increase in hourly substitute worker wages for substitute educational support staff, custodians and secretaries. The hourly rate changed from $8.75 per hour to $9 an hour.
The board approved the superintendent’s request to serve as an adjunct professor for St. Mary University’s educational administration program in Bemidji, teaching one night per week.
At June’s board meeting, the district was notified that it did not receive the fresh fruit and vegetable grant for the upcoming school year. Indus had that grant for the past two years and Northome for one year.
The district did not receive the grant because the population of students on the free or reduced-lunch program is below 59 percent.
The grant had previously introduced students to fruits and vegetables that are not common to them to create a sense to eat healthier.
The district was awarded an Alternative Delivery of Instructional Services grant, which helps the district create programs to provide remediation courses as an alternative to placing some students in special education classes.
