School District 51 approved the school budget at last week’s board of education meeting.
The bylaw passed without any discussion. The bylaw amount is $16,669,957 for the 2010/2011 fiscal year.
The board also approved a motion to get wireless Internet installed in the schools.
“We would like to put wireless in our schools,” said Secretary-Treasurer Jeanette Hanlon.
The cost of the new wireless system will be $68,000 and will facilitate all the schools in the district. The high schools would be done next year when those schools update to new computers.
Superintendant Michael Strukoff said that though some schools have wireless, it’s the residential type.
“They’re older and they’re failing and there’s lots of problems with them,” Strukoff said. “Those would be pulled out and enterprise versions are what’s going to all of our schools.”
When discussion came up around the district development board having no trustees representing the West Boundary, Board Chair Teresa Rezansoff explained her reasoning behind it.
“I’m blowing everything up. I want everybody to be thinking outside the box, I don’t want us to be stuck on this east/west thing,” Rezansoff said. “It’s a solid board; everybody’s representative of the whole entire district.”
Board trustee Vicki Gee brought up her concerns that it was more trouble for some than others to get to the meetings, and that paid mileage would help.
“There’s quite a difference between somebody who’s sitting in Grand Forks that has a five-minute drive to a meeting and myself,” Gee said.
Gee tried to pass a motion that would see the board have one trustee from the west as a representative on the district development team.
Rezansoff was hesitant in taking the motion.
“I don’t know that that motion has any place, because it would then probably be going against what our policy says,” Rezansoff said, adding that it would have to be taken up at a policy meeting.