FAIRMONT — The Fairmont School Board convened Tuesday night to discuss the Literacy and Read Act as well as the Truth and Taxation Hearing for 2024. Following roll call and the approval of last month’s meeting minutes, Fairmont Superintendent Andy Traetow updated the board on enrollment.

Fairmont Junior/Senior High School has seen a slight decrease in students from 860 in Nov. 2022, to 839 as of Dec. 11. The elementary school has seen an opposite change. The student base at Fairmont Elementary has grown from 854 students in Nov. 2022 to 863 as of Dec. 11.

The other news, Traetow proposed a change in the school’s photographer for yearly pictures. The new photographers will be from a local business instead of the previous option who the school appreciated working with over the years.

“We’ve used Strawbridge Studios for the last number of years,” Traetow said. “Going into this school year we offered a local business the ability to present a proposal for picture services for our school district, and we are confident they will provide a quality product.”

Moving over to the financial report side of the meeting, Eide Bailly sent a representative to report their findings from the yearly audit report.

The audits from 2023 came back clean meaning the funds were being appropriatetly allocated. There were no findings to warrant a state or federal audit.

Following the report from Eide Bailly, the board listened to proposed donations and grants. The board unanimously passed two donations, the larger sum being a $5,640 donation to the Future Farmers of America program at the high school.

After the donation conversation concluded, the board moved on to hear about the World’s Best Workforce groups update from the 2023 year and its goals for 2024.

Kim Ness represented WBW at the meeting and gave a presentation on the results for Fairmont schools when it comes to reading ability. The initial goal for this year was to see a 10 percent increase in testing for K-3 students.

Unfortunately the school did not hit that lofty goal, but did see marked improvement across most grade levels.

The results of the K-3 students saw the class of 2034 improve by 1.2 percent, the class of 2033 improve by 5.3 percent and the class of 2032 improve by 8.4 percent.

One group of students showed some slightly odd results as the sixth to eighth graders actually regressed a bit on their reading testing. The board and WBW will be looking for curriculum related solutions to this issue.

There was some disagreement over whether the scores are representative of the entire state or more local areas, but regardless the board decided any improvement is a positive outcome for the students.

In the end, the board motioned and passed the 2023-2024 Educational Improvement Plan unanimously.

Next on the agenda were proposed policy changes. The first policy change is Policy 514- Bullying Prohibition and the second policy is Policy 903- Visitors to School District Buildings and Sites.

The goals of these two policies are to help promote more safety in the schools concerning bullying issues and possible security changes to become more updated with the times.

In the penultimate segment of the meeting, the board discussed the employment of two former Cardinals’ graduates.

Tori Nava has been hired as a high school special education paraprofessional. They started on Nov. 27, 2023.

Gabriel Martinez was also hired as a long-term substitute elementary EL teacher starting Jan. 15, 2024. The two hires are welcomed additions to the Fairmont school system staff.

Lastly, the board discussed Truth and Taxation for 2024. The board unanimously passed the 2024 tax levy totaling $6,502,062.47. The general levy fund will be increasing by $367,437.37 in 2024.

The next Fairmont Area School Board meeting will take place at 5:15 p.m. on January 9, 2024 in the Fairmont Elementary School Budd Room.