District 88

Board

denies

grievances

Student expelled for 12 months

By KREMENA TODOROVA

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- The District 88 Board of Education Thursday denied grievances by six teachers related to teaching schedules and the amount of preparation time in 2001-2002.

The grievances, filed by art, music and physical education teachers at the start of the school year, claim overload and/or inadequate preparation time, and sought overload pay, more preparation time and/or hiring additional staff.

The grievances had been put on hold pending the conclusion of contract negotiations.

With a new contract signed recently, the grievances were reviewed and denied by the superintendent. The teachers then appealed that decision to the school board.

Motivating its own denial, the school board stressed that while it sympathizes with the teachers, there was no contract violation in this case.

The board "recognized and understood the basis" for the grievances, said board member Susan Nierengarten. The burden on these and other teachers has "certainly" been greater than in past years, she said. "Clearly" this is a direct outcome to budget cuts in 2001-2002, Nierengarten said.

But the grievances are about "whether or not we violated the collective bargaining agreement," said Nierengarten.

"We did not violate the terms of the contract."

School Board Chair Susan Ullery stressed in turn that placing more responsibilities on the teachers is a financially-motivated step, and "not a statement about how hard they are working, or how much we appreciate their work."

* In an addendum item, the board voted unanimously to expel an eighth-grade male student for 12 months, after the student violated the schools' weapons policy, threatening another student with a knife.

After administrators met with the student and his family, a hearing on the matter was waived.

While the student may attend another educational institution in the next 12 months, his education remains District 88's responsibility, Superintendent Harold Remme reminded the board and the public. The district would pay tuition for the student.

* The board also approved the installation of an electronic message board on the Garden Street side of the high school.

The sign will cost $27,000 and is entirely funded by Coca-Cola in exchange for a 10-year contract to sell soft drinks on the school premises, which extends Coke's current contract.

The message board will not bear any Coke logos.

* While not making any decisions on the matter, the board heard a presentation from administrators on a new student information system called Campus, with a view to its potential installation in the future.

Currently the district uses a system called MacSchool to track attendance, grades and various other data.

While the current system is client-server based, Campus is completely web-based and can be accessed from any computer, said the presenters, Remme, Technology Director Bill Aufderheide and High School Principal Richard LaPatka. This means parents can get real-time information about a student around the clock.

Campus tracks a larger range of data than MacSchool -- such as basic and graduation standards reports and full transcript data. It enables online registration for classes and eliminates the current manual data computation and aggregation.

Campus sorts the data on a census principle (by family), eliminating duplication and making matters easier for parents with more than one child accessing the system.

Campus is used by 20 percent of schools in the state and all users contacted had absolutely no misgivings and a lot of praise to share about it, said the school officials.

The new system would cost $40,000 to put in and $23,750 annually for subscription, support and upgrades. This compares to a current annual fee of $4,300.