Stewartville Public Schools — Transcript
Monday, August 10, 2026
New Staff Onboarding and Training Schedules
Open Enrollment Transportation Fee Policy
Votes (2)
New Teacher Orientation and Staff Back-to-School Workshop
Mr. Johnson, the Superintendent, provided details on the upcoming new teacher orientation, noting 18 new staff members. The orientation includes time with mentors and principals, team building, and classroom setup. He also outlined the certified staff workshop schedule, which covers a district welcome, building-level meetings, new social studies curriculum implementation, technology training, general and special education collaboration, and critical mental health and suicide prevention training.
Open Enrollment Transportation Fees Discussion and Decision
Dissent: None
Moved by Mr. Gist [0:06:26] · Seconded by Miss Cook [0:06:51]
The board addressed the policy change regarding open enrollment transportation fees. Financial Advisor Dan Shorter reported that raising the fee from $1 to $2 resulted in a loss of students, negating the intended budget reduction and potentially leading to a net negative financial impact. Board members debated the 'wishy-washy' optics of reversing a decision versus the responsibility of correcting a policy based on new information and unintended consequences. They considered options ranging from reverting to $1, maintaining the $2 fee, or a full repeal. Ultimately, the board prioritized removing barriers to student enrollment, especially with declining enrollment trends, and decided to repeal the fee entirely, understanding that other budget adjustments would be necessary in the spring.
Notable Quotes (8)
we've uh we've had our first meeting with new staff members uh last week on on Wednesday. Um we'll be bringing them back on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Um on Tuesday, the main plan is that they're going to spend time with their mentors uh with with principles. Uh and then we've got a little team building for the afternoon as well.
essentially Monday is going to be spent with kind of the district welcome there as well and some district level things and then they're going to break out into their building level meetings. We do have a little bit of curriculum work there with the new social studies curriculum as well.
Wednesday, all of our staff will be uh experiencing a training with mental health and suicide prevention. Uh, and so we'll have everybody together in a large group for that one.
as I look at those situations and I look at the reasoning we made this decision, um, ultimately was to meet a budget reduction number type situation was to generate an additional up to $20,000 of revenue. Um, so as we look at that and we look at the potential um, in losing students ultimately for ease of purposes, I typically look at the revenue of the student at $10,000 each.
it's um it's hard to know where the line is until you step on it you know especially when you don't really get much feedback so we make this decision with the information that we have and we think it'll help. We don't get much feedback but I also think we didn't get much feedback because people weren't making the payments immediately after our decision.
we're talking about $20,000 in a $27 million budget. There are a lot of variables and things that could happen that that can easily address that. Um, now there's just as much that could potentially go wrong, too. But in in the big picture of things, it it's a very small piece that I think the impact that potentially could come of it doesn't quite balance out enough to make it worth pursuing.
I would tell you that if you decide to go that route as a board, I will find a way to make that work. But I won't tell you that that doesn't mean that come spring we don't have to make some more decisions that ultimately will have to you're going to have to incorporate.
I would make a motion to repeal the open enrolled transportation fee completely.
Ordinances & Resolutions (1)
Curriculum being integrated into the staff back-to-school workshop.