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   Board Chair Marc Ruyak began the regular scheduled board meeting, held Wednesday, Apr. 19, by accepting gifts and donations from Northland Booster Club in the amount of $330 for volleyball; $500 from the Blandin Foundation; $1,500 from Crow Wing Power for a scholarship and a $10,000 scholarship from Joseph and Irene Maertens.

   Early Childhood Coordinator, Brandon Otway then presented his report and informed the board on the progress of the outdoor classroom. Currently three bid requests for landscaping and dirt work have been extended with one response saying it was beyond their scope of work. Otway is projecting the work to begin right after school dismisses for the summer. 

   Another highlight Otway mentioned was concerning a grant in the amount of $100,000 recently applied for through Lake Country Power. After completing the written application, the program was chosen to do a brief in-person presentation in Cohasset. Otway stated the program received $50,000 out of a $400,000 endowment to assist in the completion of the outdoor classroom.

   Otway mentioned with the Blandin Foundation changing their funding model, they will no longer be supporting the Northland Area Family Center (NAFC) as they have been in the past. Therefore, the district won’t be able to bill NAFC for a portion of Otway’s salary that was written into that grant. However, the program has an opportunity with Leech Lake Head Start (LLHS). It was discussed LLHS will not be re-opening their classroom at Sugar Point and are currently negotiating funding up to ten seats within the early elementary program at Northland. With this possible agreement LLHS would pay $9,000/year for each seat, which would account for the loss of grant money the program receives from the Blandin Foundation. 

   Otway also stated this funding is vital to ensure the program at Northland remains free to area residents and other neighboring districts are possibly going to have to charge for preschool classes due to the loss of grant money from the Blandin Foundation. One question that was asked was how many students the program can accommodate how do we communicate with families from neighboring school districts that our program is free and there are openings. Otway stated the maximum cap for the building at Northland is 40 students, 20 in each of the two classrooms. It was also mentioned after the annual registration night held last month there was approximately 60 people in attendance and NAFC is nearing full enrollment. Therefore, once NAFC is full all families will be directed towards Northland to attend their program. Otway also mentioned that there are numerous preschool age children in the Grand Rapids school district that can’t get into the program there and if the school was to advertise they may get a few families willing to travel to a bus stop.

   Activities Director/Elementary Principal, Janessa Green shared an update with the board stating two trophy cases have been installed, trophy’s dusted and placed in the elementary hallways. There was also discussion regarding painting of the High School gym and whether to move the banners or purchase new banners. Green mentioned she is having difficulty receiving pricing from her banner supplier, but shared with the board what other schools banners look like when the school CoOp a sport with another school. Currently board members seemed to want to purchase new banners instead of moving the old ones and stripping the Elementary gym bare. The discussion regarding the painting of the gym it was decided not to utilize the custodial staff and instead give the list of possible dates to Jen Kovall to organize a committee of volunteers.

   Green informed the board that the she is in the process of planning the Athletic and  Academic Awards banquet which will be held Wed., May 24 at 6 p.m. Another exciting update was from a recently held Storm CoOp meeting with information regarding new opportunities for students next school year. Currently Hill City offers Speech and One Act, while Northland offers Trap Shooting. With acceptance from the Minnesota State High School League the schools plan on CoOping those activities to offer more opportunity and grow those programs.

   In other Board action:

   • Approved the 2023 Senior Class Trip for May 17 - 18 to visit Skyzone, Valleyfair Amusement Park and staying overnight at Great Wolf Lodge.

   • Heard information from Business Manager Lori Backlund, with Arrowhead Regional Computing Consortium regarding receiving additional money from the State for Covid cleaning which is leftover due to other schools not using their allocation.

   • Discussed the possibility of opening up the fitness center 24/7 and who’s responsibility it would be to monitor possible damage.

   •  Approved the addition of a make-up snow day for K-11 on June 2 and being released at 12:30 p.m.

   • Approved a tuition reimbursement up to the amount of $5,000 per year to Stacey McKinney to complete a Grad Program 2.

   • Accepted the resignation of Stacey Wake as Junior High Basketball Coach, effective Mar. 27 and the retirement of Dick Wake as Bus Driver, effective Mar. 22.

   The board has scheduled the following meetings: work session, Wed., April 26 at 5:30 p.m. and the regular meeting, Wed., May 17 at 5:30 p.m. and all meetings are held at Northland High School.

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