No Election, New Hires, and Facility Updates Highlight April School Board Meeting

The Milbank School District Board of Education met for their regular meeting at MHS on Monday, April 13. All board members were in attendance. 

Superintendent Justin Downes announced there will be no school board election this year. Only one candidate, Matt Trevett filed for the open position. Trevett was temporarily appointed to the board when board member Jeremy Steffensen became the Grant County Sheriff and stepped down. 

The board approved several resignations and new hires.

Resignations accepted :

• Braden Femling –as an Assistant Wrestling Coach
• Alexis Schubert – as theMilbank Middle School Oral Interp Coach 
• Carter Malone – as a Science Teacher and an Assistant Boys Basketball Coach
• Logan Diede – as an Assistant Golf Coach
• Shawna VanderGrift – as a Special Education Teacher
• Owen Fisher – as an Elementary Paraprofessional
• Hannah Schrader, – as the Assistant FFA Adviser

New hires approved included:

• Cynthia Wiseman, – as a Kitchen Worker
• Judith Shakespaere – as a Teacher
• Tatum Berry – as a Teacher

The board also approved certified staff contracts along with supplemental contracts for the upcoming school year.

Additional approvals:

• Membership in the South Dakota High School Activities Association
• An open enrollment application for a seventh-grade student
• An out-of-state travel request for National Speech and Debate Convention
• Acceptance of the district’s 2025 audit
• Annelies Seffrood as a board member for the equalization meeting
• A lane change for Katie Sinner Pulscher

Jody Hernandez, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Northern Plains, gave a brief presentation on the organization and the surveys submitted by 280 people in the community about childcare.

The board approved out-of-state travel for eighth graders to attend the Minnesota Twins baseball game on May 20. Milbank Middle School  Principal Ryan Scoular said, “This will be money they’ve raised through concessions at middle school dances and at track meets.”

The board also approved eliminating April 16, 2027, as an in-service day.

Superintendent Justin Downes provided an update on several summer maintenance and improvement projects at the schools. The new elementary gym floor was damaged by water. Crews intend to remove the problem area and weave new boards in by the end of this week. so the gym will be usable for PE. “The next crew that comes in will do a complete sanding, staining, repainting and finishing. It should be ready to go by September,” said Downes.

Other planned projects include continued sewer pipe lining in two portions of the high school building. Downes had hoped to tackle redoing the entire parking lot. Taking out the center sidewalk to make snow removal seamless was on the wish list. The cost of the project is very high., though so it might be completed in sections. 

The bleachers in the Armory are another project on the horizon. Downes stated, “We continue to have seat failures, and we really don’t want anybody to get hurt. We will look at getting a quote for that to start at the conclusion of the 2027 school year. He noted mowing bids for this summer went out.

Downes also reported a 10 percent  increase in health insurance costs, which he says impacts negotiations. “Our historical average has been six percent  prior to this year.”

The board discussed awarding letters of  recognition – major and minor “M”s – for non-school-sponsored activities such as swimming, shooting sports, and baseball. Downes said the topic has been raised multiple times by different groups throughout the years. “We’ll collect some info and data and figure out…if there’s a model that works for us moving forward,” he said. No action was taken as the discussion is in its early stages.

Consent agenda items approved during the meeting: (1) Minutes of March Meetings (2) Business Manager’s  Financial Report (3) Bills Presented for Payment (4) Promissory Note from General Fund to Special Education for $78,000.

Milbank Elementary Principal Dave Graf reported state testing for elementary students in grades three through five is underway this week and will continue through April.

  “NWA growth testing  will pick up then for K-5 and we’ll be able to see how far all of our kids have grown from the beginning of the year to the end. It’s quite remarkable where they start and how far they’ve come.”

The Kindergarten Round Up for incoming kindergarteners and junior kindergarteners will be held on Tuesday, May 5. 

High school principal Dan Snaza reported  “Our committee met and chose the recipients of the  Education Foundation scholarships. There’s 28 of those. There are currently 34 Frandsen recipients from the Frandsen Scholarship, and that may grow,” he added.

Snaza also reported the National Honor Society held its induction ceremony for 18 new members. He gave an update on activities at the high school:  “Art is busy. Kids are setting up a display at The Bank tomorrow through the 20th.  Fifty students and their advisers are in Pierre  at the FBLA state leadership event. On Thursday, 70 students will head to Sioux Falls for the HOSA competition.  FFA teams also head to Brookings to the state FFA Convention. Twenty  kids are headed to Sioux Falls later this month for the FCCLA convention. “It’s crazy.  It’s a good crazy,” remarked Snaza.

The musical Guys and Dolls will be on stage April 24- 25.  The large group music contest is scheduled for April 29 in Watertown.

Snaza concluded his report by saying, “We have received our ACT scores back, which is our state test…from what I’ve seen, the math score is up.”

Special Services director Andrea Hagen reported over 20 families attended  the three and four- year-old preschool screening. She also informed the board that the ESL staff have finished all their testing.

Milbank Middle School Principal Ryan Scoular explained that middle school students are also preparing for state testing. He continued, “The middle school student council has a couple service projects that they’re working on. We sold (ice cream) floats so that we can go (to the Orphan Grain Train) and create Mercy Meals. You have to supply funding to create those meals. It was a great thing for our kids to do last year and we really thought it was worthwhile.”

Our second project is creating May Day baskets for nursing home residents. May 1, we’ll bus them out to the nursing homes, and they’ll deliver the May Day baskets. The  third thing they’ll do is some cleanup for the track meet coming up.”

Despite weather challenges the spring athletic seasons are ramping up. .“We’ve rescheduled more contests since the spring season started, than we had all winter long,” Scoular said as he reported in his role as athletic director. 

“Softball has started and we’ll really get rolling now.  Golf meets start picking up. Tennis is in full swing. So athletically, we’re really active right now. The spring  season gets so condensed. We have to get all this stuff in before the end of May, and it’s not always easy. But we’re working on it.”

The next regular school board meeting is scheduled for May 11 at 6 p.m.