Rebecca Pankratz was elected president of the McPherson USD 418 Board of Education as part of their annual reorganization Monday night. Pankratz succeeds Dr. Lara Vanderhoof, who continues on the board. Chelsea Busch was elected to continue as vice president.
The board during the meeting approved a communication policy for students, as mandated by the Kansas Legislature earlier this year. Related to this, the Board designated the District’s Facebook and Instagram as official media for the district. Communication between coaches and team members is being moved to the Bound platform, which has been adopted by other AVCTL schools.
It also approved a large number of appointments and designations that school districts have to make at the start of each school year, and accepted a $6,000 donation from the McPherson Bullpup Booster Club divided among 12 high school and middle school teams and organizations that worked Booster Club concession events during the spring sports season.
In his report, Superintendent Cody Rierson reflected on his first not quite two weeks on the job.
Rierson discussed with the board matters related to the Revenue Neutral Rate. During his time as Superintendent of Moundridge USD 423, their practice was always to approve a notice of intent to exceed RNR. The Moundridge district was able to come in under the published levy amount three out of five years, and while they may or may not be the approach the board wishes to take, he wanted to put that out there.
Based on valuation numbers provided by the McPherson County Clerk’s Office, Rierson said the projected increase in the district’s bond and interest levy came in a shade less than what had been projected. During the campaign for March’s successful bond election the district had projected an additional levy of 4.75 mills. Subject to final valuation figures this fall, the levy increase would be 4.739 mills.
He reported the inclusive playground that had been installed last year at Eisenhower Elementary School is being relocated to Washington Elementary. Work on that will start as soon as possible, but it’s likely the move won’t be complete when school starts, but will be sometime in September or October.
Rierson also discussed with the board his involvement with the McPherson Economic Development Visioning Group. Rierson had been serving as the Moundridge representative for the group, but he now represents USD 418. In that, a lot of the group has been discussing fits in with that USD 418 has been discussing.
