PRESCOTT — A concept was presented by Prescott’s high school technical education department for a district pavilion/machine shed during the March 12 school board meeting. The board took a chance by adding kilns and sawmills to become one of two schools in the state to have them. Prescott is the largest school to provide the machines and they have paid for themselves in a year’s time.

“You can see the fruits of their labor out back, but if you’ve ever had an opportunity also to just tour what they did this year, you know that the space that they have is packed to the gills,” High School Principal Josh Fiege said. “You can smell the wood drying in the kiln, you can see all the projects that students are creating from donated wood and wood that they have milled themselves, and then, that’s not to say anything about the educational experience of just taking something from production and manufacturing into a finished project.”

The current concern and primary reason for the need for a machine shed is space.

“Right now, if you were to drive around the back of our school, you would see that we have logs, we have finished boards, we have what some people would call a fire pit and other people would call a fire hazard,” Fiege said.

A machine shed would help squash the space issue. The shed would also serve as a classroom space and the teachers would no longer have to set up the mill every day. Sports like football and cross country would benefit by having increased storage space.

The plan was to open in fall of 2025 but continue to be finished throughout multiple years. Cost estimates for the building were $58,000, but there were other options including purchasing materials and having students construct the building.

It was purely an information item to get feedback from the board, and it likely will return to the board in the future.

“I think kind of what you’re hearing from the board is we’re really in support of this,” Vice President Tanya Holub said. “Our teachers have shown us just what they can do with that kind of learning with our students.”

Policy review

The board dove right back into policy review after approving over 40 revised policies during the February meeting. In February, three policies regarding ethics and conflict of interest were pushed back a month for revisions because of wording that prohibited family members from supervising each other. Board members were concerned that in a small district, sometimes relatives have to supervise each other in the district, citing sports coaching staffs as an example.

They were met with a pair of options at the March meeting. The first was to state that supervision could happen with prior approval from the district administrator, and the second was to allow it when no other options are available. The board preferred the first option and made the approval.

“Two, it says when there’s no other options basically, and I don’t think that’s always the case,” Holub said. “Sometimes that’s just the best option, but there are other options available.”

The board also talked through the process of administrators consulting with outside businesses or organizations.

“No administrative employee may accept or engage in employment consulting, advising or other professional activities with any organization other than the district whether the administrator will receive compensation or not,” Superintendent Dr. Rick Spicuzza read.
Spicuzza went on to explain consulting could happen with the approval of the district administrator prior. In the instance where the administrator would be consulting, they would need school board approval.

The board approved the extension of a system for some employees including educational aides and food service staff that allows them to be paid for two snow days and two additional sick days. Bus drivers were added to the program by the board, with an estimated $3,500 impact to the district from their addition.

2022 Referendum

Prescott is closing out its three-year working agreement with Market and Johnson for the 2022 referendum projects.

There are some projects hitting the final stages from that referendum, with the middle school wrestling and weight room flooring recently being completed, spring break projects including cabinet heaters at the elementary and fans in the gym at the intermediate school and summer projects including faucets and shut-off valves, exhaust fans in bathrooms, a kitchen grease trap, bathroom partitions and drainpipe replacement.

By June 13, the district has to close out the way the bonds are being held, so they proceeded with the reconciliation at the March meeting. The district has $250-300,000 remaining to allocate. Bleacher replacement at the middle school was also discussed as a potential addition to the project. The project was estimated to be around $250,000 and was projected to be replaced in 2019. The bleachers are originals from the school when it was built in 1969 and are “way past their life expectancy.” They have caused trouble for the custodians in recent years, frequently breaking down and requiring maintenance. The board approved going after the project that would include a curtain to host multiple events at the same time along with the bleachers. Activities Director Matt Smith said the district had to turn down an event opportunity weeks ago because of the lack of gym separation.