MONROE — During the July 24 School District of Monroe Board of Education meeting, the board approved a couple of changes that will effect the high school beginning this year.
All district schools will add 10 minutes to each school day. At the high school, that time will go into adding a second flex period for the students.
“We have also made some other small adjustments to our daily schedule in order to allow us to have better access to all students and for all students to have better access to our staff,” said Jeriamy Jackson, MHS Principal wrote in an email to students, staff and their families.
Passing time between classes at MHS will be reduced from 7 to 5 minutes, which Jackson said will still leave plenty of time for students to get from class to class.
“Instead of one 40-minute flex time in the morning, we will now have two 30-minute flex times, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The morning flex time will be strictly dedicated to academic support, while the afternoon flex can be used for academic support, it may also be used for club and activity meetings as long as a student is not requested elsewhere for academic reasons.
The school day at MHS will end at 3:31 p.m. on a normal Monday to Thursday schedule, with the Friday early release ending at 1:31 p.m.
In regards to graduation, Jackson sent out a survey to students, families and staff asking about graduation. He included recently graduated students, and students set to join MHS this fall.
The longstanding tradition at Monroe High School is to hold the graduation ceremony in the afternoon on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Many other area schools hold their graduation on a different day, with a popular choice being the Friday before Memorial Day — a difference of two days.
According to Jackson, there were 409 total responses to the survey, with 53.8% of respondents preferring Friday evening, 28.6% of respondents preferring Sunday afternoon and 17.6% that had no preference.
The board approved the change. Graduation for the Class of 2024 will now take place from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, May 24. Jackson said the time block adds space by design, as this year’s commencement lasted just 75 minutes.
“It is our hope that this will start a new tradition for the graduation commencement ceremony, allow families to enjoy their holiday weekend and allow for a cooler venue in the evening. It was also important to get this date and time out as soon as possible, as we recognize that some families start planning very early for travel and other plans you may have,” Jackson said.
During the meeting, the board also tentatively approved the date of the annual meeting, which is scheduled for Oct. 16 at 5 p.m. at the Bauer Education Center. The board has until about two weeks before that date to change the time, date and/or venue. Monroe’s National Honor Society induction for the Class of 2025 is scheduled for that same evening at 7 p.m. in the MHS PAC.
New MHS update
The board also was updated on initial testing at the tentative new MHS campus site. “On the 12th of July, we had test pits that were done on the B&S site. The results were available on Monday, July 17 at about 4:41 p.m.,” said Rodney Figueroa, District Superintendent. “Those documents ... we will get those uploaded to our website this week.”
Five initial test pits were dug. Three were on the more elevated north side and went 15 feet down. The rock was deeper than that, Figueroa reported.
The test pit on the west side of the campus, where the proposed baseball diamond will sit, had rock at 8 feet. The fifth test, where the soccer practice field would sit, had rock at 11 feet.
“They didn’t find rock at the depth they thought they were going to find it. The soils were as expected, and the site is buildable,” Figueroa said.
School board member Mike Froseth, Jr. added a reminder on the record that the five test pits, soil boring, soil study and geotechnical report: “The test pits are not equal to a true soil sampling and geotech report.”
The same initial procedure happened at the DR site, which was another potential location for the new high school campus.
“Basically what it is, is there is an expert out back with a back hoe, they dig a hole ... It’s very unscientific and the guy that works on it all day everyday says ‘This is this; this is this; this is this,” Froseth continued. “The next steps are going to be doing actual soil borings, where they pick specific spots based around our specific designs where footings and foundations will be. They will go up to 40-60 feet deep based on those final grades.”
About 40 total core samples would be taken, and those samples would then go to a laboratory, which would then report back the compression strength of the soil, which will let designers know exactly what could be built on it.
“There is a significant cost difference between what we did with the preliminary, which was just to try to give us a good idea of what we are dealing with,” Froseth said. “What we’re still doing for the due diligence is far more in-depth.”
The core samples will be taken once the district selects a civil engineer.
“They (the civil engineer) are going to order those,” Figueroa clarified. “Once we have that person on board, that will get done. We have to get through several steps yet to get to that point.”
Figueroa reiterated that the district would provide further information to the public at each Board of Education meeting, and time-marked video replay of the meetings will be made available on the district’s YouTube page the following day. The district’s website will also be updated as there is information to share.
“Based on the results from this, it could have changed CG (Schmidt) and PRA’s plans for where everything went,” said Rich Deprez, school board president. “The overall feeling from this report is that their preliminary opinion is that the site is suitable for the planned development. ... To Mike’s point, the follow-up soil and actual borings that will take place across the entire footprint of the developable land will be based on designs that are more well developed than what we have now.”
The board worked on a communication plan that could be posted on the website and social media to keep the community updated and informed on the step-by-step process during the entirety of the project. Updates would come on a roughly every-other-week schedule, as the board meets on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. Figueroa said a separate web page will be created.
“People need to understand that there is a lot more to come,” said Ron Olson, District Business Administrator.