Several items were discussed and others approved at Sutton Public School’s Board meeting Monday, Nov. 18.
Of those, college credits were one heavily discussed item, which came about during SPS Secondary Principal Jason Cafferty’s report.
Currently, students can earn up to 12 college credits, and Cafferty said the school can look into offering more, but they don’t have the teachers for those classes.
In order for teachers to support college credits—or dual credit courses—they must have a master’s degree in the subject.
SPS Superintendent Brad Best added that a study showed students who graduated with college credits only used 40 percent of them, most of the time due to colleges not accepting the other 60 percent.
“There’s more to it than people realize,” Cafferty said.
SPS Board member Teryl Andersen said while college credit options are nice, with the scheduling for the school already challenging, she’d prefer the school to focus on the high school classes and getting students to graduation.
Other board members agreed with the statement. Discussion was tabled for another meeting.
A hiring timeline for a superintendent, who will take over in the 2025-26 school year, was outlined. The deadline for application submissions is Nov. 24. SPS Board President Jim Jones Jr. and Best said the application numbers are better than anticipated and they’re making good progress.
On Dec. 3, board members will go through the applications, and then on Dec. 11 they’ll conduct interviews, deliberate, and try to make an offer that night.
Best told the board to “stick true to your values you want and don’t compromise,” when choosing a superintendent, because they’ll be working together, hopefully for years.
Board members approved three action items, including the reimbursement for additional endorsement exam fees, after passing the praxis; and approving changes to the proposed 2024-25 calendar.
Additionally, board members unanimously approved a lighting bid from Sutton Electric for $52,660. The lighting project is for the parking lot and will include installing new light poles throughout the parking lot from the east to the west, as well as by the greenhouse and smaller lights along the front-door sidewalk.
They received a second bid from A&E Electric in Hastings for $86,000, which mostly had the same installations except by the greenhouse.
Best explained it would take a little bit of time to order the new aluminum poles, but as soon as those come in Sutton Electric can get started fairly quickly.
