TORRINGTON – The Goshen County School Board met on Tuesday, April 30 at 6:30 p.m. in the board room for a special board meeting for consideration of the 2024 – 2025 salary and benefits proposal. 

An executive session for personnel, salaries, and benefits began for the board at 6 p.m. which is closed to the public. 

At 6:31 p.m., chairman Michael Sussex called the meeting to order followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. In attendance were vice chair Sarah Chaires, clerk Chris Alexander, treasurer Carlos Saucedo, and board members Lena Moeller, Dylan Hager, Wade Phipps, and Justin Hurley. Board member Matthew Cushman was absent.

A motion was made to approve the agenda which passed, and the board moved on to item e, public input hearing for comments regarding the 2024-2025 school year calendar where superintendent Ryan Kramer spoke to the board on the meeting held on Monday, April 29.

“I’ll just talk about last evening,” Kramer began. “Trustee Saucedo was able to attend our listening session. We had a really good conversation about some of the factors within the calendar and some of the changes we’re going to make for next year. As trustee Hurley can attest to, the eight meetings that we had, each lasting an hour and a half, to build that calendar where we had 32 committee members as a part of that from varying areas of classified, certified, parents, board members and it was very interesting to have that conversation. There is no way to address all of the concerns, but I appreciate a lot of the feedback in regard to the survey,” Kramer said.

Another survey will be released in May according to Kramer as well as an additional survey this fall for the upcoming calendar. According to Kramer, the district will continue to refine the current calendar and continue to seek input.

“I do want to just extend appreciation to all of those that did show up,” Saucedo began. “I think there was a lot of good feedback plus some ideas for different questions regarding the survey. I thought it was a good meeting. I think that timewise it could have actually gone a lot longer. It was a very good discussion, and I was just appreciative of you all showing up,” Saucedo said. 

Jennifer Brummell spoke during the public forum. She stated she teaches school in the district, and she wanted to come forward and extend a thank you to the negotiation committee. 

“I just wanted to take this opportunity, because we don’t do this often to come and thank the committee as a whole for all of their hard work. We take the day off, obviously, and we give up our time but so do you as board members,” Brummell said to the board. “We know that you take time away from your work which has got to be hard.”

Abby Bruch, special education teacher, also thanked the negotiation committee during the public forum.

“You would have thought that Jennifer Brummell and I met prior to this because really all of the same points come true for me as well,” Bruch said. “The population of people I represent on the negotiations team is that team of special education people throughout our district, which is a very large population. it is by far the most eye-opening team effort of a committee that you could ever serve on. I think what I appreciate the most is every voice is valuable,” Bruch said. 

The board quickly moved on to item g, considering acceptance of the resignation submitted by certified staff where a motion was made and passed and the board accepted the resignation submitted of district math instructional facilitator Lori Jones.

The board moved on to item h, considering the approval of offering teaching contracts for the 2024-2025 school year, and offered Jamie Brimer, and Lainey Mekelburg as Lincoln Elementary teachers.

Moving on to item i, the board considered approval of contracting with Branching Minds for MTSS Data Warehouse and Intervention Template Platform, where the board approved a contract with Branching Minds for 1,650 students’ licenses for MTSS data integration warehouse and intervention template platform.

Moving on to item j, the board considered the approval of the request for an exception to district policy 5147 regarding field trips where the board considered the recommendation to approve the request from Trail Elementary for an exception allowing 5th grader students to travel to Glendo Reservoir on Thursday, May 16, and Tuesday, May 21, 2024. The motion was approved. 

The board moved on to item k on the agenda, considering the recommendation to approve the 2024-2025 salary and benefits proposal as present, which was approved.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:49 p.m.