From the Mount Pleasant School Board Meeting

The Mount Pleasant School Board approved a 28E agreement with Great Prairie AEA for social worker services for the coming school year.  Katie VanSickel will be in the district 4 days a week. Mount Pleasant will pay Great Prairie $54,000 for the services for the 20/21 school year. The state allows districts who share a position like this to receive additional weighting.  This means Mount Pleasant will be allowed state funds equal to the amount received for 3 students.  That comes to $21,000 additional dollars. In other business, the board accepted a quote for asphalt work on the Salem school front parking lot and drive in the amount of $34,657.  The board also approved renewing the property, casualty and workers comp insurance at a 5.5 percent increase with Gamrath, Doyle Vens. The insurance for the district student laptops and tablets was renewed.  Following a presentation by IJAG instructor Tony Swayzer, the board approved a second year of the program that helps students who could be at risk for not graduating, gain skills to help them not only finish highschool but go on to further education or a job.

School districts in Iowa must submit a return to learn plan to the state department of education by July 1.  The six teams in the Mount Pleasant district designated to create that plan have met.  Now what?  There apparently hasn’t been a lot of specific guidance from the depart of ed other than local districts will make their own decisions about how a return to classes in the fall will be handled.   Will it be remote learning, onsite learning or a hybrid of both. Right now there has to be a plan for each of those options.  At the Mount Pleasant school board meeting Monday night Supt John Henriksen said it is very challenging when you just don’t know how the pandemic will play out and creating the plan has been daunting.  Mount Pleasant doesn’t have any plans to start school any earlier and will stick to a start date of August 24.