FAIRMONT — The Fairmont Area School Board on Tuesday heard a report from Fairmont Jr./Sr. High School vocational principal Andy Traetow and vocational teacher Bob Bonin.

Last Thursday, the pair — along with Superintendent Joe Brown and two students — visited the state Capitol to speak in front of the Education Innovation Policy and Education Finance committees. The group had been invited to speak by state Rep. Peggy Bennett about a bill that would provide state aid for students taking vocational classes outside of the regularly scheduled school day.

“Our manufacturing area is saying, ‘Hey, we need more skilled laborers,” Bonin said. “Not six months from now, but last night. We have the need here but we now need to fill that hole.'”

Brown has been working on getting additional funding for the past two years. Several months ago, he sent a letter to state Sen. Gary Dahms, the assistant majority leader who also serves on the E-12 Finance and E-12 Policy committees. Brown asked that a sentence be added to current law to allow extended time revenue for vocational classes taught outside of the traditional school day.

“Some of our students gets jammed up,” Bonin said. “Not every student that walks through our doors is a four-year college-bound kid. They might flunk a ninth grade class and then they need to retake it as a 10th-grader, plus all the other classes they need to take, and then they have no room to take any electives or vocational classes. This bill will create opportunities for them when they do get jammed up to still come beyond that and take that class that is necessary, which would probably give them a desire to come to school to take that class.”

The bill would provide funding for classes taught on weekends, evenings or in the summer.

“It’s amazing to be a part of a statewide piece where so many people are looking at our school district as a model of how to grow these programs,” Traetow said.

“What we advocated for is not really to create something new, but to allow us to build on what we already have moving forward through increased revenue from the state of Minnesota,” he said. “The proposal is not for us to make money as a school district, but to be able to simply offset the cost of what we’re putting into investing in these programs that happen outside the school day so that we can continue to offer them moving forward.”

Brown reported that school representatives have been invited back to the Capitol to speak before the Senate Education Policy Committee on Thursday.

In other news, the school board:

o Accepted a donation of $1,000 from the National FFA Foundation to the Fairmont FFA program.

o Accepted a donation of $1,178 from Project 1590 to the Fairmont High School FFA program.