STURGIS, S.D. – The Meade 46-1 School Board met Monday night for their December meeting and had a pretty routine agenda.
Superintendent Jeff Simmons says among the highlights were to amend the general fund budget.
“We have some federal dollars that are passing through our general fund and we have to account for those,” Simmons says.
“We have improvements we are working on in three of our schools and taking care of our needs there and making sure our students getting what they need.”
Simmons also says in regards to the general fund, increasing enrollment is really helping out.
“And we are projecting that we will have increased enrollment again next year and, really, just determining how much. That’s the big thing right now. We are getting together with the principal’s and looking at projections as to what we think.”
Simmons also said “We need to bring teachers back. We had a teacher hiring freeze and we didn’t hire teachers back and we have large class sizes in many of our schools. We need to get that under control and get those class sizes down.”
Simmons says they are concerned about the Governor’s budget proposal that does not include any increase in state aid to fund teacher salaries.
For the first time since 2016, there will be no increase in state aid to raise teacher salaries, making it the third year the state has fallen behind on its promise to keep teacher pay competitive if the budget passes.
