School, fair board renew contract, hires for 2022-23 approved

The Red Oak School Board met for the first and only time in December at a meeting held Dec. 20.
Among the action items on the agenda, according to superintendent Ron Lorenz, was to approve the renewal of an agreement between the Red Oak District and the Montgomery County Agricultural Society.
“This agreement really defines the different roles and responsibilities of the different entities that coordinate the fair. There have been no changes to the agreement as-written,” Lorenz said.
The board approved the renewal of the agreement with the Montgomery County Agricultural Society.
The board also declined a request for Zaden Beacham to open enroll from Red Oak to the Shenandoah Community School District, upon a recommendation from Lorenz, who said typically open enrollment requests were approved under the consent agenda, but he felt in this case, it warranted conversation.
“The parents had requested open enrollment to Shenandoah, but this student does not meet any of the good-cause exemptions for open-enrollment after the date, and the student is not experiencing a change in residency, nor experiencing any pervasive harassment or bullying, so we are not recommending the board approve the request at this point,” explained Lorenz.
Lorenz added the parents were free to request Beacham’s open enrollment for next year, but it was not recommended at this time.
“It’s a very formal process to approve open enrollment from the state; in essence, there are check-boxes on the statewide application, and the parent was honest and said that nothing noted on the application was an issue, they were merely making an open enrollment request.
The board denied the open enrollment request for Zaden Beacham.
In other business, the board:
• Approved a sharing agreement with the Clarinda Community School District for the 2021-22 school year.  
• Approved the hire of Riley Brown as agriculture instructor/FFA sponsor for the 2022-23 school year.
• Approved the hire of David Ross as a bus driver, pending mandatory pre-employment drug testing, for the 2021-22 school year.
• Approved the hire of William Collins as high school math instructor for the 2022-23 school year, pending a background check.
• Approved the resignation of Anneliese Oritz as para-professional at the Red Oak Early Childhood Center, effective Dec. 27.
• Approved the resignation of Stephanie Berglund as kindergarten instructor at Inman Elementary, effective Jan. 14, 2022.
• Approved a request to authorize board secretary Deb Drey to pay bills prior to formal approval at the next regular school board meeting on Jan. 10, 2022.
• Approved an authorization to petition the school budget review committee to cover the excess costs of providing services to limited English proficient students that exceeds the supplemental amount.
“At a prior board meeting, we approved the beyond five-year expense, and this application wasn’t available at this time, so this will complete that prior board action,” commented Lorenz.
The board approved issuing the application to the school budget review committee.