HURON — Perhaps the most optimistic part of Monday evening’s Huron School Board meeting, amongst the numbers for the proposed budget and the Capital Outlay fund for the coming school year, was the announcement that graduation will be mask optional.
As part of his report at the meeting, Superintendent Terry Nebelsick noted that the school’s operations team had concluded that if the students, faculty and staff can make it virus free to May 21 — the final day masks will be required in the district — it will have cleared the hurdle of reporting ‘close contacts’ and masks would not be required at Huron’s May 23 graduation ceremonies in Huron Arena.
“It will be up to each person if he or she wishes to wear a mask, and they are welcome to do so,” Nebelsick said, “but students, we faculty and administration on stage and the people attending graduation in the audience will not be required to wear a mask.”
Nebelsick noted that in the rush of end-of-the-year events leading up to graduation, combined with the gathering of families and friends, actually renders the graduation ceremony as the smallest risk of the week.
Much of the remainder of the meeting was dedicated to a first peek at a proposed budget for next year.
District Business Manager Kelly Christopherson noted that the board normally likes to have a proposed budget at least a few months ahead of the formal adoption of the upcoming year’s budget, which will be completed in August. The school district’s fiscal year is July 1 through June 30.
Christopherson noted that this year’s proposed budget may need to have extensive changes worked into it, depending upon how the Emergency and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds are allowed to be spent. He said that the bulk of the school district’s $2.7 million in ESSER funds are earmarked for construction of the addition to the Career and Technical Education (CTE) building and the replacement of the chiller unit for the Huron Middle School.
“If the ESSER funding is not approved for the construction projects,” Christopherson said, “then this budget will need a complete re-write so the projects can be fully funded with Capital Outlay funds.” He said he hopes that the answer becomes clearer in the next month.
Overall, the proposed budget for the 2021-22 school year shows very little increase over the current year, with the exception of the construction projects.
Other items that are planned for next year, but not assured, pending ESSER funding, include Chromebooks for second- through eighth-grade students, resurfacing the track at Tiger Stadium, new scoreboards for the Huron Middle School gyms and Promethian Interactive Displays for all classrooms, K-12.
The proposed budget is based on a presumption of 2,815 students, which is an increase from this year’s 2,788 on ‘count day,’ the last Friday in September. Christopherson noted that there are 145 seniors this year and the average kindergarten class has been 215 students, so the proposed student count is reasonable.
In other action, the board:
