Ten Sleep school board approves bus lease for wedding

An unusual request crossed the table during the Sept. 11 meeting of the Washakie County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees.

Participants of a wedding planned for Nov. 4 asked to lease one of the district’s school buses to shuttle the wedding party throughout the day. The route will go from Ten Sleep, to Buffalo, to Meadowlark Lake and back to Ten Sleep. The party would be responsible for costs related to mileage and the driver.

As this circumstance is covered under the district’s liability insurance, the board saw no issues approving the lease.

In researching the history of such leases, Superintendent Annie Griffin discovered that several other school districts in Wyoming lease out their vehicles frequently. She said, “It’s not uncommon, just uncommon for us.”

BUILDING REPORT

Griffin once again provided the board with a breakdown of the last month’s progress on the construction of the new school. She informed them that several more concrete pours had taken place, with mostly favorable conditions, and brought the building closer to having the ground level floors finished. She said that soon crews would begin to polish concrete.

Discussion on the design of the new school’s monument sign, a decorative piece bearing the name of the school, had halted while the contact for that project was away on maternity leave but will resume soon.

POLICY

The following policies were approved on second reading:

Policy 6.01 Clubs and Organizations – Provides sanctions and guidelines for approved activities.

Policy 6.04.1 Senior Fundraising Account – If there are remaining funds in the senior class fundraising account at the end of the fiscal year, the funds will be equally distributed to the new freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior class accounts.

Policy 6.11 Drug Testing – Outlines the participants, procedures and consequences involved in drug testing for high school students involved in activities.

The following policies were approved on first reading:

Policy 4.24 Bus Drivers – requirements and regulations for district bus drivers.

Policy 8.08 School-Owned Vehicles – requirements and regulations for district staff driving school-owned vehicles.

STRATEGIC PLAN

Staff have provided feedback on a draft of the district’s Strategic Three-Year Plan, a document that looks toward the future of the school and its practices. The document listed “maximizing student achievement” as a goal, and board members discussed the possibility of having a means of measuring this. Further discussions on the Three-Year Strategic Plan will be held at a later time.

OTHER BUSINESS

The district received a $104,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to purchase a generator for the new school. The district chipped in $52,000 from their major maintenance fund to cover the rest of the cost.

An out-of-state trip was approved for Ten Sleep FFA students to travel to Billings, for contests on October 16 and 17.

Standing orders that lay out treatment protocol for scenarios involving allergic reactions were approved.