The Morris School board held its regular monthly meeting on Monday. During this, they discussed the plan to remodel a few buildings around their campus. Superintendent Chris Karch explained more about the planned renovations.

“We’ve went ahead and done an encumbrance with Wagnon Construction to do our bathrooms. So that’s in the works,” he said.

These renovations will include the middle school, high school, and gymnasium, and are expected to cost around $150,000, including material and labor, with work to be completed on the ceiling, flooring, restroom upgrades and more building improvements.

Superintendent Karch also spoke about some of the new requirements from the State Department regarding parental rights and library media.

“What we’re having to do is we’re actually going to be going in, in October, and providing our card catalog digitally to the State Department,” Karch explained, adding that the information has been available on the website, but they are now required to submit that to the State Department.

— State Department Rules

Dr. Karch also explained the new parental rights rule from the State Department, which he said “addresses using names and pronouns of students at schools and our responsibility as a school to report to parents, basically, if students are asking to be referred to in something that we’re not accustomed to.”

It should be noted that Dr. Karch was not championing these policies, but was making his staff aware of the changes from the State Department. He said that it’s not something that will have to be made public, but they are required to talk to staff about it.

“I actually got an email today from our regional accreditation officer, where I have to report to her here in the next couple of weeks how we’re addressing this,” he said.

Board Member Mark Mabrey also asked about additional security at games following recent events. Superintendent Karch said he has a team from the State Department scheduled to come in and do a security assessment that will open up the possibility of receiving grants to improve security measures.

— Also Approved at the Meeting

• Estimate of Needs and financial statements for FY 2022-23

• Mathematics and science courses provided by Green Country Technology Center to be counted towards graduation credits

• The creation of an activity subaccount “Heartland Conference”

• Alternative Education Statutory Waiver/Deregulation Application for 2023-24

• A new addition for graduation attire, regarding tribal regalia -The following were also approved as adjunct teachers:

• Trygve Jorgensen – Secondary Language Arts

• Chris Barbee – Mid-Level Science