Babel officially takes seat on District 88 school board

By RACHEL WEDDIG

Journal Staff Writer

NEW UlM -- The District 88 School Board installed its the newly appointed board member, Tim Babel, at its meeting Thursday.

In an unanimous vote last Thursday during a special board meeting, Babel was chosen to fill the position.

"It's an honor to be selected to guide the community children," read Chair Sue Ullery during the installation. "This power puts you and other school board members responsible for the quality of education within the district."

After the installation and oath, Babel replied, "Thanks. I'm happy to be here."

During Superintendent Harold Remme's report, Remme asked the board for their thoughts on what the minimum class size should be. Last year, the minimum class size was 15 students, and this year it was 18. He suggested the board return the class size to 15.

Remme said he needed a consensus to bring back to High School Principal Dick LaPatka for scheduling purposes.

Board member Brian Wieland spoke in favor of returning the class size to 15.

"I'm in favor of returning the class size back to 15," Wieland said. "I think that it was something we promised to the public and I feel we'd be negligent if we didn't. We need to be firm with the number."

Board member Susan Nierengarten didn't agree with having a set number.

"I disagree on having a firm number -- there are differences among the classes," Nierengarten said. "I would like to see some flexibility in some of the classes to go lower than 15, if the alternative is not to offer the class. I don't think the basic electives should go lower than 15, but others we may want to be flexible with."

Nierengarten felt that certain classes should be looked at on an individual basis.

"We ought to be open to looking at it on a case-to-case basis," Nierengarten said. "Some classes may never get to 15, so we may want to offer them every other year. This would require more advanced planning then some students may want to make, but they would get used to planning for it."

Remme said that he felt the consensus was to bring the minimum class size back to 15, with flexibility to go lower for some classes if circumstances permit.

Remme gave a long range planning task force update. He told the board they have a three things to think about -- renewing the lease for the Early Childhood Family Education program at the Family Learning Center, shifting of school grades and leasing district property to the Head Start program.

Remme said the district's lease at the Family Learning Center for ECFE is expiring and the board should think about moving the program into Jefferson. He said this would save the tax-payer costs and it would better utilize building space.

Readjusting the grade levels was something talked about in the mid 1990s, Remme said. The thoughts at the time were to have preschool through second grade in Jefferson, grades 3-5 in Washington and grades 6-8 in the middle school.

"We need to watch the enrollment decline and we need to plan appropriately for the use of all our sites," Remme said. "If the enrollment decline continues as it is, we may go down to three buildings, but this is all speculation right now."

Remme said Head Start is interested in renting a space in Jefferson beginning in the summer of 2002. Remme said advantages to this would be more efficient use of school property and additional revenues.