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Four days added to North Crawford school year
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The North Crawford School Board decided to add four days to school calendar in order to meet the state required 180 days of instruction.

To date, the school district has cancelled nine instructional days, including eight for severe weather and one to allow students to attend the state volleyball tournament. Although the district schedules more instructional days than required, the large number of cancelled days necessitated adding four days to meet the minimum of instructional days required by the state.

An initial proposal from the administration would have added four days to the end of the school year, which would have made the last day of school Thursday, June 12. Since teachers are contractually obligated to work more days than just the instructional days that are required of the students, the proposal would have made Friday, June 13 the last day for teachers.

Several school board members said students, staff and parents had indicated they would rather make up the days by forfeiting other scheduled vacation days and limiting the amount of days added to the end of the school year.

Board member Tina Volden asked if the days missed could be made up by adding minutes to the school day.

North Crawford School District Administrator Dr. Dan Davies  told Volden that state law required a certain number days, as well as a certain number of minutes, and simply adding minutes would not satisfy the day requirement.

After further discussion, it was decided to change Thursday, April 17 and Monday, April 21 from vacation days to instructional days. In addition to those two days, it was decided to add Monday, June 9 and Tuesday, June 10 as instructional days. This would meet the state requirement by adding four days. The teachers last day would be Wednesday, June 11.

Additionally, teachers who attend the annual wellness and fitness event, known as ‘Spring it On’ on Saturday, April 26, will be allowed to work just a half day on June 11.

A motion approving those changes was made and passed on a voice vote.

In other business, the North Crawford School Board:

• accepted the resignation of Henry Bray as the girls softball coach

• approved an overnight field trip to Green Bay for the high school business classes

 • approved Todd Evers as the assistant softball coach with an option to apply for the head coaching position

• approved Dave Bergum as the head baseball coach, Mike Allbaugh as the boys track coach and Ed Heisz as the girls track coach

• approved Luke Spicer and Scott Schellhorn as the junior high track coaches

• approved Tyler Patzner as a junior varsity baseball coach

• approved Brian Steyer and Melissa Heisz as assistant track coaches

• decided to approve a complete list of paid and unpaid theater workers and volunteers

• selected teacher Scott Hubatch to serve as the new district website supervisor

• approved a one-day unpaid leave for teacher Jessica Gander to facilitate a planned family trip and agreed the district administrator could approve such leaves in the future without board approval

• discussed parts of an agreement with Vernon Memorial Healthcare concerning their role in a proposed fitness center for the school

• met in closed session to participate in a conference call with the district’s attorney to discuss litigation the district is or is likely to be involved considering an action disallowing claims against the district

• tabled action on a resolution disallowing claims against the district

• agreed to move the next regular school board meeting to Thursday, March 27