Charles City School District agrees to share operations position with RRMR

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Charles City Community School District’s Director of Operations Jerry Mitchell gave his mid-year update during the school board’s regular meeting on Monday, April 10, then talked about a change in his position relative to the school district.

Mitchell laid out three major projects that he and his team have worked on this year, starting with updating the district’s five-year plan for facility projects. Mitchell has five years worth of projects to put together and will bring projects for the 2024-25 school year to the board in the fall.

In the meantime, for current projects, the district has received a bid to tear down the bus barn and is waiting on a new school bus to be delivered. Roofing work is also being done in buildings across the district.

The second major point of Mitchell’s report was the launching of the school’s Crisis Response and Life Safety Advisory Committee. Consisting of school administrators, law enforcement, and other related members, the committee is working on grant applications, emergency simulations, and training programs to develop protocols for the school in the event of an emergency.

The recent “swatting” incident at the district and in schools across the state, where hoax reports of school shootings were called in to area law enforcement agencies, did have the benefit of providing a dry run for the committee, and they’ve identified eight security related issues for the district to address following the incident.

This lead to the third point of Mitchell’s report, the goal to secure the building entrances across the district.

Mitchell has worked with an architect to create designs for the school’s three buildings and hopes to secure grant funding to pay for the projects. Otherwise, they will be paid for with the school’s Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) fund.

The board wasn’t quite done with Mitchell following his report. A sharing agreement between the district and the Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock School District was discussed that would allow Mitchell to serve as RRMR’s operation’s director.

The agreement would amount to about one day a week for Mitchell or his staff and save the district $60,000 in salary. Mitchell said he is on board with the plan and said it would benefit both districts.

In other business, the board officially gave its approval to the graduate list for the Class of 2023 and approved the certified budget for the 2023-24 school year. The total tax levy for next year will be $12.93 per $1,000 of assessed taxable valuation, a decrease of $0.12 per $1,000 from the current year.

In personnel matters, the board approved the resignation of middle school boys cross country coach Erik Hoefer, high school math teacher Wendy LaBarge, teacher Stena Schmidt, high school science teacher Abby Gomez, and Tia McInroy from the yearbook.

For new appointments, the board approved Chealsy Moen as Lincoln Elementary lead teacher, Carly Marten as Washington Elementary lead teacher, Lucas Anderson as 8th grade math teacher, and Katelyn Kluver for general music and chorus.