TORRINGTON – Anna Hartman, the Southeast High School representative was sworn into office during the Goshen County School Board meeting held on Tuesday evening. 

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Michael Sussex at 7:35 p.m. and all board members were present. 

The agenda was adopted as presented. 

Hartman was then given her sworn oath of duty. She joins Mason Wilkes, of Platte River School, Louden Bremer, of Lingle-Fort Laramie High School and Madison Copenbarger of Torrington High School as student body representatives.

The board then quickly moved on to the next item on the agenda, information, and proposals, where no action was to be taken.

Student representatives Copenbarger gave her presentation to the board on ACT testing and how the junior class felt about the upcoming tests. 

“In order to really get the full picture of how all the juniors feel in Torrington, I sent out a survey for all them to fill out. These were just basic questions that I had multiple choice answers for and these went based off that,” Copenbarger said. “The first question was do you think you are prepared for the ACT on March 26? Ten percent answered ‘yes, they are very prepared’. Eighty percent responded, ‘sort of prepared’ and 10% said ‘not prepared at all.’” 

Copenbarger also asked fellow juniors if their classmates felt prepared and, in her questionnaire, Copenbarger also offered students to provide written responses on how the school could better prepare students for the exam. 

“Most people said more practice. More practice ACTs. Give us five minutes of study time, during Blazer Time, which we have every single day around in between our second and third period,” Copenbarger said. “I simply believe there are a lot of answers saying the juniors feel sort of prepared or not prepared and I think this is based off of lack of practice ACTs and stuff in the classroom. I think that this could be fixed with just a little study time each day.”

Bremer then presented on the ACTs.

Bremer, from Lingle-Fort Laramie High School, also requested the input of his fellow classmates.  

In the information gather from Bremer, he expressed students had no knowledge of the testing dates in advance. He also stated there was limited practice media. He also stated every Wednesday, Lingle-Fort Laramie middle school and high school students take a ten-minute quiz, geared back to ACT tests. Bremer finds it beneficial results are instantly given to the students. 

Hartman gave a presentation on how the juniors at Southeast High School feel about the ACT tests, stating the students are nervous because it’s a big test. 

She explained the students fell into two categories, one being prepared and the other bunch of students felt they didn’t utilize opportunities to practice the ACTs and were not as prepared as the first group. 

The board then moved on to and update on Project AWARE by community project manager, Christina Bullington. 

“In our school based mental health services as of March 1, we had 15 students receiving services. Five were awaiting intake and 12 were refused and or no contact from the parent and six have been completely discharged from the program,” Bullington explained. “Federally, standard access to care is 28 days from when someone is requesting care until when they actually see a clinician and the average number of days from referral to intake for project aware is 18 days.”

Bullington also noted there were many counseling providers in Goshen County. 

Amanda Fogle, Southeast High School and LaGrange Schools guidance counselor then presented to the board. Fogle spoke about the Leader in Me program.

“We have just begun this program this year. We started out finding some of the booklets, the 7 habits book is based on FranklinCovey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Fogle explained. “They have a complete curriculum that teaches those skills k-12.”

Fogle expressed classes meet once a week to work on the curriculum as there are multiple components. She stated the groups are taking their time on each course, so the message becomes a foundation with the student body.

There were no speakers for the public forum and the board moved on to the consent agenda jumping to letter e, accepting a grant to provide vape detectors at Torrington Middle School, Torrington High School and Platte River School, through the Community Healthcare Foundation. 

Ryan Kramer, superintendent of schools, explained neither Lingle-Ft. Laramie Schools and Southeast Schools are utilizing the grant, stating they will see how the grant works for the three schools. A motion was made to accept the $26,808 grant to purchase detectors and the motion passed. 

The board then moved to letter h of the agenda, approving a purchase exceeding $5,000 for the purchase of custodial supplies for Trail Elementary in the about of $5,900.11 and Torrington High School for the amount of $14,352.32, from Bluff Facility Solutions in the total amount of $14, 352.32 of general funds. 

A motion was made to change the total amount from $14, 352.32 to $20,252.43 and the item carried with changed. 

The board quickly moved on to item two, new business, letter a, considering approval of offering administer contracts for the 2024-2025 school year school year. 

The following contacts were approved to offer as recommended Lana Swingholm, principal, Tyler Floerchinger, principal, James Catlin, principal, Jim English, assistant principal, Cory Gilchriest, principal, Tim Williams, principal, Matt Daily, principal, Lindsay Maxey, principal, Kevin Derby, director of curriculum and instruction, Trina Nichol, special education director, Marcy Cates, district business manager. A motion was made to accept the recommendation and offer administrative contracts to the group and the motion passed. 

The next item up for discussion was b, to consider accepting the certificated staff resignations of the following positions Kristi McGuire, Torrington High School Business Education teacher, Kelli Johnson, Torrington Middle School Physical Education teacher, Brady Fullmer, Torrington Middle School Behavior Interventionist (ESSER funded), Ashley Fullmer, Trail Elementary 3rd grade teacher. A motion was made to accept the recommendations as presented and the motion passed. 

Moving on the letter c, conder approval of summer school administrators for the 2024 session. It was recommended and approved to accept Tyler Floerchinger as the 2024 Elementary summer school principal, and Jacob Martin as the 2024 Secondary summer school principal. 

The board then accepted the recommendation to offering certified contracts to Clayton McSpadden as a dean of students, Todd Weber as a trade and technical education, woods teacher, Noni Weber as an English teacher, and Shane Buchholz as an agriculture education teacher, all at Southeast Schools for the 2024-2025 school year and the motion passed. 

Up next, the board considered approval of memorandum of understanding with Eastern Wyoming College, as recommended. The item carried. 

Moving on to letter f, considering approval for contracting with Solution Tree for two days of in district professional development for the leadership team with Breez Daniels in May 2024 in the amount of $13,000 (Title II funds), the motion carried. 

The board approved contracting Crafted Consulting PLC for three district administrators to attend out of district professional development for

“Learning Impact Principal Framework” during Summer 2024 in the total amount of $28.850.00, as recommended. 

The board quickly moved on to items h – q, approving all items of new business. 

Moving on to number three, topics of discussion, board members can seek input from each other on timely topics. 

“I would like to be able to possibly revisit and reconsider the acknowledgement or the celebration of our district’s teams. Whether it be football teams, debate teams, whoever it is, and acknowledge and validating their accomplishments at the board meetings,” board treasure, Carlos Saucedo, said. 

The discussion of where to draw the celebratory line was brought up by the board. 

“The ironic thing we can always think of, I can think of a number of students who received Cs and they worked really, really hard to get that grade too,” Kramer said. “How do you, as the difficultly of this is, where do we draw that line with our 1,609 students that all definitely deserve those accolades because they are all working their tails off one way or another.” 

Saucedo stated instead of developing another committee, having the student representatives develop their thoughts on a way to accomplish ideas to celebrate and recognize students for accomplishments.

The salary relations committee will meet on Friday, March 22, at 12:30 p.m. and on

Thursday, April 18, at 8:00 a.m. board members serving on this committee are Mac Sussex, Sarah Chaires, and Lena Moeller and a work session for the preliminary budget will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9, prior to the regular board meeting at 7 p.m.

During the superintendent’s report, Kramer gave updates on the current 2023-2024 school year student enrolment numbers, certified staff vacancies and transfers. He also gave an update on LifeSpot School Safety App. 

The meeting was adjourned thereafter.