ELLSWORTH — The Ellsworth Community School District Board approved a policy revision regarding the use of personal communication devices due to a change to state statutes.

The revised policy lists approved communication platforms, conduct expectations for communications between staff and students and expectations for responsible AI use. Because of the change at the state level, the district could approve the policy on the first reading.

“We feel good about how it conforms to the statute and what it brings to us as a district,” Superintendent Brian Nadeau said. “Across our buildings we have a pretty solid, and have had a long-standing solid policy in terms of how things are utilized and enforced, and I think that matters because it helps us align closer to some of these policy changes that are coming.”

Building-level administration said previous cell phone policy changes have benefitted the enforcement process.

Extra-curricular communication was a topic of discussion. With many clubs and sports teams using different communication apps and sites, desire was expressed by board members to narrow that list.

“The delineation, for those of you that have kids in activities know, they’re all different,” Nadeau said. “Where do the school-issued ones stop, and where do the club and other activities start, and there are a lot of them. We are working to hopefully clean that up. The issue with that, though, is that comes with a cost, that’s not free. The reason why those are being used, whether it’s school-used or club-used, is typically because they’re free.”

The AI addition prohibits students from entering personal information into AI. The policy also prevents students from generating harmful content through AI.

The board also approved some increases to school fees and lunch/breakfast prices.

“You will see some fee changes. That was part of the phase modification, the pivot so to speak, in our leadership and administrative planning as we prepared for the potential of a referendum versus not a referendum,” Nadeau said.

Nadeau said some of the fees stem from project costs, with students who want to go above and beyond needing to do so with their own money. The district has resources for families who cannot afford class fees.

For food prices, breakfast was increased from $2.30 to $2.35, elementary lunch from $3.05 to $3.15, MS/HS lunch from $3.25 to $3.35, adult lunch from $4.75 to $4.85 and milk from $0.45 to $0.50.

“Modest increases. Any increase in any of these is something that is always discussed, and we try to be very, very cautious and deliberate about changes to this,” Nadeau said. “Those types of impacts don’t go under the radar. They’re something that we take very seriously.”

A district parent spoke during public comment about claims of underreporting of incidents to the Department of Public Instruction. The parent said accurate reporting is both required and important, asking that the board investigates and reports the data they have reported.

Personnel

The board approved the following personnel changes:

Hires: Tracy Boesel, elementary teaching assistant; Abby Esterby, high school English teacher; Olivia Knapp, elementary teaching assistant/PKC staff; Anita Peterson, long term substitute teacher; Michelle Prissel, elementary teaching assistant; Katie VanGorden, elementary teaching assistant; Tennessee Wacek, high school English teacher.

Resignations: Stella Anderson, high school second assistant track coach; Kim Huggett, high school first assistant track coach; Diana Lange, middle school girls track coach and seventh grade assistant basketball coach; Shane Lange, middle school boys track coach; Haylee Yaeger, high school girls basketball coach and middle school assistant track coach; Ashley Zierl, middle school assistant track coach.

Extra/Co-Curricular: Sarah Ainsworth, adaptive floor hockey; Alexis Daute, varsity volleyball assistant coach.