The Callaway Board of Education gathered for their regular monthly meeting on July 8, with a new face at the table. JD Furrow presided over his first meeting as superintendent of Callaway Public School.

It was a lengthy agenda that led to a lot of discussion for Furrow’s first meeting that lasted nearly two and a half hours. Elementary Principal Brittany Jesseph led off the business portion of the meeting with a presentation on the curriculum being used by the district to meet the social emotional learning (SEL) needs of the students, and a proposal to incorporate a new program.

After doing research on the options for curriculum Jesseph recommended to the board that the district go with Character Strong rather than the current Second Step. “The nice thing is Character Strong will be a K-12 system, so we will all be on the same page when it comes to administration. The main thing we want to do is make sure our teachers are working for positive relationships with our kids and realizing the impact that sort of relationship can have. You don’t have to be that one person for every kid, but I guarantee you’re somebody’s person,” Jesseph explained further.

She shared how data has confirmed how beneficial it is for students when teachers do something as simple as greeting them at the door with a smile and a “good morning”. Character Strong focuses on relationships. “It equips teachers to help it, not just directed at the students,” said Jesseph. “So it’s not just that we are constantly drilling the students, but we are teaching the teachers how to teach the students.”

Jesseph explained that she has received funding to help offset the initial cost of transitioning to Character Strong, and will be looking for grants to help with the yearly costs in the future. The cost to the district will be a little over $3,000 with an annual renewal fee

cont. PAGE 3 - School Board of $2,000. Later in the meeting the board approved the recommendation to transition to Character Strong as the district’s SEL curriculum.

Following Jesseph’s presentation Furrow shared preliminary budget information with the board and explained just what the levy lids are and what they mean. For the current school year, the district taxed $3.72 million and the total non-property tax revenue is $194,000. Along with that are the special education reimbursement and TEOSA, which gives the district a project amount of just over $4 million to spend on educating children.

'Really we can get about $150,000 more dollars and still be under that lid,” Furrow explained. He said a super majority vote of the board could raise the lid and add an additional $250,000 to the district’s tax asking. The kicker, he said, is that the tax asking to achieve that additional revenue would actually be lower than the current amount.

“We would actually tax less, but because our spend income has increased so much we are going to grow that 3%, because the pink slips have to do with raising the tax asking 2% and we’re not. We could potentially drop the tax asking,” he explained. “I want you to understand that you are going to have some options. We need to grow all the time at a rate similar to the world around us. We’re just dipping our toe in the water right now, but I just wanted to get the conversation started.”

School budgets are extremely complicated and hard to understand for most of us, and this is a conversation that we will continue to follow and report on.

Moving on to other business, Furrow reported that South Loup is still in need of a golf coach for the upcoming school year. He shared that Arnold Superintendent Joel Morgan has visited with current assistant coach Jeff Cole and he is willing to take on the head coach role temporarily.

“It would be nice to also find a coach from here, for transportation and student supervision purposes,” said Furrow. There is also a need for a female supervisor or assistant coach for girls wrestling.

Lunch prices for the 2024-25 school year were approved at: breakfast $2.40, seconds 75 cents, milk 40 cents, and juice at 35 cents; preK-6 lunch $2.85; 7-12 lunch $3; adult lunch $3.15; and snacks $10.

The board also approved the addition of single pay insurance for the district’s paras at a cost of $155,000 this year. However, Furrow explained that with the addition of a full-time special education instructor the district will have three fewer paras than last year and will still save money, even with the insurance benefit.

The next meeting of the Callaway school board will be Aug. 12 at 8 p.m. in the school library. All meetings are open to the public.