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Board approves minutes, policies, contracts, and salary schedules in May meeting
Summary
The River Falls Board of Education approved routine minutes and bills, advanced and adopted multiple instructional and administrative policies, approved support staff letters of intent and salary schedules, and ratified bus driver and teacher collective bargaining agreements.
The River Falls Board of Education took a series of formal actions during its regular meeting, approving routine business items, several policy updates and bargaining agreements.
Key votes and outcomes (voice votes unless otherwise noted):
- Minutes, bills and employment recommendations: Approved (motion carried by voice vote).
- First reading of revised district early-literacy/reading instruction policy and first reading of new third-to-fourth-grade promotion and retention policy (Act 20 compliance): First readings approved; board instructed staff to return with final language by July 2025 and noted the promotion policy will not take effect until Sept. 2027.
- First and second readings for instructional and library-media materials policies: The board approved the first readings of revised policy 03/2001 (selection of instructional materials), revised policy 361.2 (selection of library media center materials), and associated 361.2 rules/procedures; the board later approved the second readings and adopted the updated materials-selection policies.
- Personnel and compensation items: Board approved sending letters of intent to return to all support staff and approved the 2025–26 hourly support-staff salary schedule.
- Bus driver collective bargaining agreement: Approved. The agreement includes a 2.9% per-cell increase for cells 1–9, 4.48% for cell 10, a 3% total salary increase for trip and suburban drivers, and a 4.48% total package increase for driver trainers. The district reported the vendor covered a cost issue on a facilities contract at no cost to the district.
- Teacher collective bargaining agreement: Approved by the board with one abstention. The contract includes a 2.95% base wage increase per step and an average total salary increase of 4.28%.
- Contract for policy-development services (Neola): The board approved entering a contract with Neola for policy services to centralize drafting and legal vetting of board policies.
- First reading of revised public-participation policy (01/1987): The board approved a first reading to update language to ‘‘presiding officer’’ and to clarify that those addressing the board should identify municipality of residence and relationship to district; the policy broadens eligibility to speak while helping presiding officers evaluate relevance.
Board members said there had been constructive bargaining conversations with union representatives and praised the committee work that led to the policy updates. Where abstentions were recorded, the meeting transcript notes the abstention but does not show a roll-call tally.
