ACGC School Board sets goals

ATWATER - The Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City School Board has goals this year of improving the perception of its district and also promoting its four-day school week.
These goals were among others approved Monday at the ACGC School Board meeting conducted at the Atwater Elementary School.
The school board agreed Monday to start a campaign to keep the district’s four-day school week.
All board members plan to write letters to parties of interest in support of what it calls a flexible, innovative schedule. Members will also solicit community members to write letters to their legislators.
In order to improve public perception of the district, the school board will conduct a survey to find areas of improvement, polling local families.
ACGC started the four-day schedule during the 2010-11 school year, according to Tribune archives. A request was approved last year by Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius to continue the current schedule into the 2015-16 year.
Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa and MACCRAY school districts applied this year to continue their a four-day school week, but did not have their requests approved. There is some concern whether or not ACGC will be able to continue its four-day week in coming years.
School board member Judy Raske suggested during Monday’s meeting that the school board promote the four-day week by also promoting the successes of ACGC students.
“I think we need to promote the innovation and uniqueness of what we want to do,” Raske said.
Cassellius approved ACGC’s four-day schedule last year partially because the flexible schedule makes it easier to host staff development sessions without interrupting class time.
The ACGC School Board also on Monday was presented with and approved an audit by KDV company of St. Cloud.
The report showed that ACGC spends roughly $11,375 per student each year, compared with a national average of $10,778 per student.
The report showed that ACGC was slightly over budget in 2014 in regular instruction expenses, spending about $100,000 more than its budget of roughly $3.9 million.
ACGC spent about $86,000 less than budgeted on special education instruction in 2014 and spent about $100,000 less than budgeted on district and school administration.
Other areas of expenses were close to ACGC’s targeted budget.