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Seneca School Board thanks members for service
Seneca School District

SENECA - The Seneca School Board had two new board members attending the meeting on Monday night and presented their two outgoing members with plaques honoring their service.

The two new board members, Charles Clark and Tyler Aspenson were elected on Tuesday, April 3. They were officially sworn-in at the meeting Monday, April 16, 2018 and will serve three-year terms.

Outgoing board member Brian Reynolds was presented with a plaque and thanked for his service by board president Mark Johnson, while outgoing school board member Gary Allan was presented with a plaque and thanked by Seneca School Board Treasurer Larry Kelley.

The school board will do reorganization at their next meeting on May 21 that will include making new committee assignments and holding elections for school board officers.

Under new business, the board learned that a recent storm damaged the maintenance garage roof and that even though the school district has a $1,000 deductible on their insurance policy they will still receive $1,900 toward the repair of that roof. Chambers Construction was the only company of three contacted to return a bid. The board authorized Chambers to do the work at a cost of $2,874.

As might be expected, the board again discussed bolstering security at the school in the aftermath of the school shooting in Florida. The State of Wisconsin is indicating it will provide ‘Safe School Grants’ at two levels at some point in the near future, according to Seneca School District Administrator Dave Boland.

Boland told the board that it might be realistic to hope the funding was in place and the work was completed by the start of school next fall.

Seneca Schools got another bid for the installation of eight electronically locking doors-it was $21,200 and that’s in line with a previous bid.

Access Security, the company who bid the work is located in Viroqua and has done similar work at the Prairie du Chien School District, Crawford County and the North Crawford School District. Officials at North Crawford contacted by Seneca gave a positive review of the work done by the company.

Boland noted the bid did not include cameras or alarms, but the system would provide an alert in the event any of the doors were left propped open.

The district will continue to investigate security options for the school and follow the evolving funding structure being presented by the state. Boland explained the state now seems to be looking at two levels of fundinga basic level and higher level for districts that want to go further with security.

Boland also told the board that the district is currently being bombarded with offers from security firms.

In other business, the Seneca School Board:

• agreed to let a junior student graduate a semester early in the 2019-20 school year to help him pursue getting an education at SWTC to become a lineman

• reviewed and approved a shared services agreement with Belmont School District to share the services of a school psychologist currently under contract to Seneca

• approved a student accident insurance policy for $1,500 with the understanding that the need for carrying the policy in the future will be reviewed

• approved continued membership in SWEEP, a consortium of schools that share the use of certain machinery often used on athletic fields

• briefly reviewed a budget summary

• were informed that the Seneca Middle School was selected by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction as a School of Recognition

• decided the Seneca School District Monthly Recognition should go to the school’s three Academic All-Conference selections—Emily Garfoot, Cody Ostrander and Spencer Boland

• learned that Ridge and Valley Conference Athletic Directors were asking for obvious reasons for permission to move some games to Wednesdays in light of massive weather cancellations