(Jackson, Mn.)– Some facility improvements will be made over the summer at Jackson County Central Schools. Superintendent Barry Schmidt…
“The board did approve to move forward on to updating our track. We’re going to renew some track on that for safety reasons and also for opportunity, we have a lot of students out. We’re also going to revamp the infield of the track area so we can use it for a practice facility for safety but also expands that for football, our camps, for soccer programs, anything like that may come about for summer community ed, so we’re excited about that. We also have cement we’re replacing at the front doors, doors one, two, at the high school, and we have some odds and ends that we’re looking at doing to make sure but those are the two biggest projects that we’re moving forward on this year.”
Schmidt says the track project has an estimated cost of $245,000. He says it’s been 20 years since anything was done with it. Schmidt adds JCC is continuing to work on strategic and operational plans that would extend over the next three years…
“We have taken a lot of the surveys from our students and staff and our families and we’ve narrowed those down to ten statements for each level that will be included in our strategic plan so people can see what we’re working on. And we did get feedback about safety and making sure kids feel safe, about making sure about culture and climate, and just making sure we have excellence in academics. We’re excited about that. We have about two more meetings left and we should be good to go and hopefully this summer we can post that out to the public and be ready to go.”
Schmidt says they’ll also be sending out information later this month about a possible increase in JCC’s operating levy. He says several factors are driving that, including declining enrollment…
“We’re expecting about 60 kindergartners this year which is about 15 less than we expected. We also have funding challenges from the state. They keep changing different things and variables for us so that makes it a struggle. We can’t plan out more than a couple of years. The third thing, the biggest thing, is in 2016 the voters approved an operating levy and we’re close to that. It ends 2028. We want to be prepared ahead of time to make sure we get those tax revenues.”
When it comes to filling vacant positions, Schmidt says they’ve seen an increase in applicants recently thanks to more aggressive recruiting. He also says the candidate pool is increasing as a lack of funding has resulted in some districts cutting positions and programs.
