BLUE EARTH– Members of the Blue Earth Area School Board heard an update on the BEA Business Professionals of America (BPA) Chapter on their continued growth and accomplishments.

Three of the four senior officers of the BEA BPA were at the School Board meeting on Monday to present the update to the board.

The local BPA group recently had its 53 members go to Rochester and compete in the Regional BPA Conference and 47 of them qualified to continue on to the State BPA Conference in Minneapolis, which is set for March 14-16.

From there, the BEA BPA hopes to have a large group qualify to head to Nationals, which is set for May 10-14 in Chicago.

The three BPA officers said there is a lot of enthusiasm for BPA at the school. It is also a lot of work to prepare for the competitions.

BPA advisor, BEA teacher Holly Vogltance, also told the BEA Board that she is pleased with the rapid growth of the BEA BPA Chapter over just the past couple of years.

“There are a lot of different avenues the students can pursue in BPA competition,” she said.

In other business at Monday’s meeting the BEA School Board:

— Heard a report from the Facilities Committee concerning their meeting with ISG Engineers about all the aspects of a potential new K-6 building.

The board then decided to have a work session about the possible new school on May 1, at 5:30 p.m.

— Heard reports from the principals that covered topics such as having Kindergarten Roundup on March 22, Science Fair on Thursday, March 14, and offering Second Chance Breakfasts in the K-7 building.

That service has been offered for four weeks and is having as many as 100 students per day taking advantage of it.

–Learned that the FFA Donkey Basketball event was a big success. Proceeds were donated to the Food Shelf.

— Approved the revised budget for 2024-2025.

— Approved the Spring Coaches list.

— Approved the agreement with the Blue Earth Diamonds for preparing the softball diamonds for practice and games.

— Accepted donations to the Bucc-y Backpack Program from Winnebago Manufacturing and the Blue Earth Kiwanis Club.

— Approved several personnel changes including: hiring Maija Whitefeather as a high school ELA teacher and James Mewhirter as a custodian; resignation of Mariah Vaughn as a paraprofessional and Gene Engelking as a custodian; retirement for Jody Eckhardt as an administrative assistant (after 40 years) and Kay Sonnicksen as a speech/language pathologist (after 37 years); extended leave of absence for Patti Lindsey, high school counselor; contract for Ashley Olson as staff accountant.