Citizen tries to discuss safety issue with school board

At the December 19 Hot Springs County School District #1 board meeting, during the public comments section, Bob Aguiar came to speak about academic statistics and transportation. However, Chairman Skelton asked which agenda item Aguiar wanted to address. Per their policy rules, public comments must be related to topics on the agenda of the meeting.

Aguiar said, “Transportation. Is that on your agenda tonight?”

An unidentified person said, “No.” 

Trustee Nicole Weyer added, “You can always ask to be put on the agenda or you can always send us an email at any time. One of the reasons that we’ve done that is because we have a lot of comments that are coming from the public that weren’t something that we even do as a board or didn’t really have anything to do with what was on our agenda. We’ve tried to narrow that down a bit, but you’re welcome to email us any information you ever want to and inform us on anything that you would like to talk about.”

Trustee Bethany Webber asked, “Were you talking about the policy we’re revising? There’s a safety policy and a policy that includes…it does include transportation in one of our policy revisions.”

An unidentified person said, “Item 5.”

Trustee Weyer said, “If there’s an agenda item that you want us to vote a certain way on, we talk about that. You can talk about the policy itself and whether you like it or don’t.” 

Aguiar said, “I’ll just make sure we get on the agenda for the next meeting. I turned in the paperwork over a week ago. I thought someone would let me know if you thought I needed to get it on the agenda.”

Chairman Skelton said, “Yeah, and I did.”

Aguiar said, “I thought you said not to come in as an introduction. I said, No, I won’t. I have other things.” 

Chairman Skelton said, “But we also did talk about that public comment per policy BEH does need to be addressed to a specific agenda item. But I also, Bob and I deeply appreciate the questions and I really appreciate the conversation. But then I did look up also our policy KE. As we’ve had discussion before, and you’ve brought up how we evaluate the superintendent or admin. And part of that evaluation is how in the discussions that they have with community members. So with policy KE it specifically addresses complaints involving the educational programs or particular school functions should be addressed to the school administrators. Then the superintendent. And if you don’t get that resolution, then the board absolutely wants to hear that. But we would love to see that followed because part of the evaluation process for us is, again, how the superintendent, as the director of the district, handles those questions, those concerns and the responsiveness to that. So that is part of our evaluation. I again, when we talked, I would…if you would let me know when you are available to set up a meeting, we will certainly do that. We’ll talk about those questions. And also, if you would like, we did talk about if you have something written up to us and introduction, please.”

Aguiar said, “I don’t need to do that.”

Chairman Skelton said, “If there is something that you would like us to know, please, we will disseminate that throughout the board. But some of your questions that you did have, if you don’t mind, I will visit about that during the committee report on the district guiding coalition because I think some of them can be answered to that. So if you would like that, I will certainly answer some of that. And we want to be as responsive as possible.”

Aguiar said, “There is one safety issue I hope you would consider and that you and I have talked about once before, but nothing’s changed. We still don’t have crossing guards in town in certain locations. This is not acceptable to the community. It really isn’t. And if you go down there and that’s the most dangerous crossing right down there, at Taco John’s and there’s nobody there. It can’t go on like that. It can’t.”

Trustee Weyer said, “I agree with you 100%. The problem is applications.”

Aguiar said, “I know that.”

Trustee Weyer added, “That’s the biggest issue we would have.”

Aguiar said, “Other counties, Washakie County, down in Fremont County, they use PE teachers, they use admin people when they didn’t have the right staffing. We’ve done nothing. Which I think that’s the worst thing we can do.”

Chairman Skelton said, “Nicole Ciz has been out there the last two days. This is a concern. My wife sent me a text and said that she wishes I would volunteer because Mrs. Ciz has been doing it the last couple of days…It is a priority.”

Aguiar said, “It’s a matter of safety compliance, I wanted to bring it to your attention.”

Trustee Jennifer Axtel said, “I think it’s not very fair. You come in and you’re telling us we’re doing nothing when we very clearly are doing something.”

Aguiar said, “Two days out of the last month.”

Trustee Weyer said, “It’s been more than that.”

Trustee Axtel said, “It has been more than that. Because I go by the school every day. We’re doing our best.” 

Chairman Skelton said, “We’re going to move on.”

Aguiar left the podium and sat down.

Trustee Webber asked, “Are you allowed to get volunteers for crossing guard duty? I have had parents reach out to me to say they would do that. I didn’t know if it was acceptable.”

Chairman Skelton asked, “Have you contacted Levi Benbo?”

Trustee Webber said, “I just want to know if we can do volunteers.”

Chairman Skelton said, “We’ve had that question as well. I have contacted Levi. I’ve had that discussion with him. Did he discuss that with you, Jess? We have an incredible ability to be proactive here. We hear those concerns. Actually, I sent a constituent about two hours ago a response to that very question after following up, letting them know that Nicole was out there doing our crossing guard duty, because that is something that’s been brought up. It’s a concern of mine as well. We don’t have to just be proactive on the third Thursday of a month through the third Tuesday. We can be proactive every day. I think that is our challenge.”

Trustee Webber said, “Again, just to clarify, my question was about volunteers, because I want to be able to say, yes, who do you go to?...I didn’t know if it was like a liability issue. So I told them I wasn’t sure of that.”

Trustee Weyer added, “Mr. Chair, I also I know it’s frustrating for the public sometimes when we maybe don’t listen to everything during public comment. I think there’s a misunderstanding. We are a meeting that happens to be held in the public. We are not a public meeting. And so that’s a huge difference. It’s really hard when and part of the reason we have the policies is it’s really hard when people come and talk to us about things. But we are not prepared at all to have any kind of an answer. So giving us a heads up through emails or making the meetings through the principal or the superintendent or the teachers, you might have issues with whatever it might be. By the time it gets to us, then we can typically have those things handled or we’re at least prepared to have a good discussion during that time. So that’s why we narrow it down to our agenda items, because, you know, there’s lots of ways to communicate with us, but sometimes public comment in the past has turned into just a time for the public to speak and get their frustrations about lots of things out. That’s not really why we’re here. We’re here to hold a meeting that happens to be done in public, but it’s not a public meeting.”

Chairman Skelton also said, “The next superintendent meeting, though, will be January 22. So that’s a great first step and avenue for that’s been something that we put in place to specifically address access to the superintendent to get answers right from the horse’s mouth, per se.”

Trustee Webber asked, “Just really quick then, so we’re saying, if you do want to volunteer to do crossing guard duty, call the principal of that area?”

The board members crosstalked and then Superintendent Hunt said to contact the admin team. 

In other business during the board meeting, Nicole Weyer nominated Sherman Skelton for chair. Bethany Webber nominated Joe Martinez. In the vote all trustees present except Webber voted for Sherman Skelton as chair. Webber was the sole vote for Joe Martinez as chair. Unanimously, Weyer was voted as vice chair and Jennifer Axel was voted as clerk, and Clay Vantwerp as treasurer. 

During the celebration section of the meeting, middle school principal Darren Luebbe presented wrestling Coach Toby Emery and recognized his work with the athletes. Emery thanked the board for being recognized and as their coach, he recognized the Thermopolis wrestling team where they placed seventh this year as a team.

In addition to their celebrations, Principal Luebbe brought up some staff and said, “I found it interesting when we start a board meeting, we talk about the mission and vision and how in the state of Wyoming we want to be number one and recognized by not only our state but nationally and all those types of things. And the middle school had the great honor here recently as being named the number one middle school in the state of Wyoming by the U.S. News and World Report. It’s something that we didn’t apply for. It was something that U.S. News and World Report went out and searched through all the data that all of the states in the United States puts out and sifted through all that and recognized the middle school for what they’ve done to help students be successful and gave us the number one ranking in the state of Wyoming.”

Luebbe thanked the entire staff and employees where he recognized their hard work and competitiveness.

Chairman Skelton and the board thanked Luebbe and the TMS staff for their dedication and success.

Trustee Nicole Weyer presented to the entire board an award for the Standard of Excellence. This award recognized that every member of the board takes time to participate in training and learn to be a board member, to learn the new educational processes, and other opportunities to do that.

Trustee Joe Martinez was awarded the certified senior master board member in leadership and learning. Martinez earned 606 points in his attendance at conferences, meetings and other training seminars. Trustees Clay Vantwerp and Jennifer Axtel were also given a similar award for them being highly trained board members.

Superintendent Dustin Hunt recognized trustee Weyer as one of the all Wyoming school board members. She joins trustee Antwerp as well. There are only five in the state. 

Thermopolis FFA advisor Britton Van Heule gave a presentation with various photos and describe what ag is and what it means today.

Van Heule added, “What we’re trying to do is we want to be recognized at the state and the national level with agriculture and with FFA because everything in agriculture is pretty much the same thing in my opinion. FFA is a vehicle for students that are interested in agriculture. To be able to give them the tools that they need to be successful, whether that is with the ag science, career development events, with judging or leadership development type stuff.”

Van Heule noted one of his students who is going to receive a $10,000 FFA scholarship as a sophomore in her college studies. He also described that FFA in Wyoming has grown so large that they struggle to have a physical venue large enough to host FFA events.

Van Heule highlighted their livestock judging team. They were first out of 70 schools. The school board replied with their appreciation to Van Heule and his students and credited their success to their hard work, volunteerism, time spent, and their parents. 

During the student trustee report, Jarek Jeffs said regarding the drama team, they had their state competition and placed third overall. They also placed second in proscenium. Students placed All-State in the following: Rosalie Willson in stage management, Brianna Lehman in fantasy make up and Kai Kraushaar in make up. Zoe Larson received an honorable mention in scenic design.

For speech and debate, they already competed in three novice tournaments and they have competed in one varsity tournament. Their next varsity tournament will be January 5-6.

For the student council, they have started working on their Honor Council application for the next year. They also have a lot of fundraisers planned. Their next field trip will be to see the state legislature at the end of February. 

The National Honor Society had their induction night with a total number of 48 members. This amount is their largest number in the school’s history. 

Robotics has two teams and their robots are now moving. They just came back from a scrimmage in Casper. On January 20, they will be in Powell.

The Wyoming Academic Challenge their team has qualified for state. They just recently hosted a home tournament in the first weekend of December. They also participated in the Bighorn Basin Knowledge Bowl and got fifth place.