Ironwood school board elects new president

By RICHARD JENKINS

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Ironwood — The board of education for the Ironwood Area Schools kicked off 2021 with its annual organizational meeting Monday.

The meeting allowed the board to approve a number of bylaws for everything from setting the procedure for filling board vacancies to setting January as the date for future organizational meetings.

The board also elected its officers, including voting 4-2 to make Clancey Byrne the new board president.

“When I joined the board, I said from the beginning I would serve in any capacity that was asked of me. … I stand by that, I will serve in whatever capacity that’s asked of me,” Byrne said during the discussion surrounding the election of officers.

Amanda Sprague and Caroline Delich voted no on the measure. Prior to vote, a motion to have Sprague continue as board president failed 4-2.

Delich was elected president pro-tem, Marilyn Nezworski was elected treasurer and Carolyn Mieloszyk was elected secretary.

Prior to the election of officers, the three board members elected to terms in the November election — Sprague, Marilyn Carey and Adam Graser — were sworn-in.

The board also designated the relevant depositories for school funds; approved authorizing the relevant check signatures; approved the annual retainer contracts with the district’s law firm, auditor and labor relations consultant and adopted a schedule of board meeting dates for the year.

The board will generally meet on the third Monday of each month, according to Superintendent Travis Powell, with the exception of February and June. Both of those meetings are scheduled to be held on the fourth Monday of the respective month, with February being moved for the Presidents Day holiday and the June meeting moved to allow for the most information to be available to the board when they make decisions related to the district’s budget for the next year.

Committee assignments were tabled to a future meeting to hopefully allow for an in-person discussion about the roles.

At the board’s regular meeting, which was held after the organizational meeting, the board heard an update on how the district was handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

Powell said the district was looking at ways the district could begin to reduce the number of upper level students who were attending a mix of remote and in-person learning on an alternating schedule, but said the district could only work on returning to in-person learning if local case rates stayed low.

As part of the effort to combat the pandemic, Powell said over 60% of school staff have signed up to be vaccinated and have begun receiving their vaccinations.

He stressed that the district still needed to be cautious as there isn’t a vaccine for children under the age of 16.

The board recognized kindergartner Ashur Spooner, fifth-grader Keely McRae, eighth-grader Dylan DeRosso and senior Isaiah Kolesar as the district’s students of the month for December. The board heard Cheryl Jacisin won the Ironwood Area Chamber of Commerce’s Gus Swanson educational award.

The board was also recognized as January is School Board Recognition Month.