MONTAGUE — The Montague school board unanimously approved its second and final budget amendment for 2024-25 during its regular meeting Monday evening.
The amendment, said Montague finance director Stacey Brown, gave the school a slightly more favorable budget than originally projected, with revenues up some $786,000 while expenditures were up about $464,000 - much of the latter being matching money to receive grants. That pushed the fund balance as a percentage of expenditures to 14.8%, which is only slightly higher than the 11-14% window the state recommends.
The increased revenues, Brown said, were largely due to grants as well as a contract with Electric Forest to use school buses for transportation. Superintendent Jeff Johnson said the district will be teaming with Shelby District Schools to provide more buses as part of that deal.
Brown also noted work done this year with money from the sinking fund, including HVAC repairs at Oehrli Elementary School and work done on air conditioning systems at the high school. The next major project, as discussed at prior meetings, is upgrading the fire suppression systems at each district building outside the Montague Area Childhood Center, which was not found to need upgrades. In the future, Brown said the district would have to look at the buildings' roofs and modernizing Oehrli's elevator.
Johnson said the district has been granted occupancy of the new gym, but some final items are still being addressed before it can be opened to the public. He also praised the work that has been done district-wide in his 10 years as superintendent, noting the improved place the budget is in since when he first took up the position.
The board unanimously approved the purchase of the Bookworms curriculum for English Language Arts instruction for elementary students at a cost of $79,270, which is being funded by a state literacy grant. Oehrli Elementary personnel presented and recommended Bookworms to the board at the April meeting. The board discussed the use of multiple vendors to purchase the needed materials; principal Sandie Lundquist said buying some of the books from Barnes and Noble enabled a savings of about $60,000 and allowed the district to purchase all the curriculum materials rather than needing to choose among them.
The board also gave unanimous approval for a planned band and choir trip to Tennessee from May 21-24 of next year. The approval was made early to allow fundraising to begin for the trip, which will coincide, said Johnson, with a music festival at Dollywood amusement park. The early plan is for about 75 students to participate, along with two teachers and other chaperones.
The board - minus president Brent Raeth, who recused himself as he is a partner in the business - also unanimously approved a $1,500 payment to CatchMark Technologies to stream Montague High School's graduation ceremonies, which are set for Friday, May 16, on its community YouTube page. The streaming has been done annually since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to the idea to stream the event. Johnson stated he hopes to integrate video and social media work similar to that done by CatchMark into high school classes in the future.
The meeting also included a presentation of Montague's Peer to Peer program by mentors Greta Auch, Amanda Cederquist, Charlotte Stuart and Jordyn Tolan. The quartet were not available to present their work, so teachers Melissa Treppa and Nick Thaler did so.
The four were mentors in the program this year, which pairs students with individualized education plans (IEPs) with other students in order to develop socialization skills and facilitate better learning opportunities for the mentees and provide one-on-one leadership skills and opportunities to the mentors. Each mentor delivered positive feedback about the friendships they formed with their mentees, and the district hopes to expand use of the program next school year.
