Powder River Examiner -

The Broadus School Board Trustees met on Monday evening, with all members present other than Shasta Madsen.

Student Council Treasurer Lea Aye got the Student Council Report, where she indicated that in the school’s canned food drive in the weeks leading up to Christmas, the sophomore class had won the competition with 200 cans of food donated by the class.

In new business, the board accepted the resignation of Mrs. Roma Rogge, who will be retiring at the end of the school year.

The board discussed potential Montana High School Association rule changes for sports, which will be voted on at the MHSA meeting, next week in Butte. School Activities Director Mike Richards is scheduled to represent Broadus at the meeting. The board indicated an interest in directing Mike to advise against a proposed change which would change the period of time in which a student changed schools but did not change addresses from the current 90 school days to a proposed 365 calendar days before playing sports.

Another item of discussion from the MHSA proposals was that of the introduction of a shot clock for high school basketball. The introduction of a shot clock would likely prevent teams from stalling and increase the pace of some games, while the argument posited against a shot clock is the cost (potentially a $3000-$5000 purchase, once the unit is installed), as well as the need for another person to man the clock, which may be difficult for small schools to recruit.

We’ll know more about these proposals in the coming weeks.

The board went on to discuss the upcoming bus contracts, two of which are now open for bids and may be found in the legal notices. Discussion centered on potential changes to insurance rates, as well as changes to future contracts which would pay drivers a percentage of their bid for days that they did not drive – for instance if a snow day occurs or a scheduling change when most of the students are gone for tournaments and the school decides to simply shut down for the day (which has been discussed, but not implemented).

In Principal Denise Terne’s report to the board, she indicated that during a 50/50 raffle held in December, $486 was raised for the Denton, MT relief fund, which will go to those affected by the late-season West Wind Fire, which burned 10,644 acres as well as a number of structures in the Fergus County town.

Superintendent Hansen indicated that work on the automated locking system for the elementary school doors was stalled, as he had contacted the company and they had forgotten to order the parts.

The board then went into a scheduled executive session to conduct the yearly Superintendent’s evaluation.

The next monthly meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 14th at 7 PM.