Rapid City Area Schools approve agreements and roof change order; board reviews new website, virtual elementary plan and curriculum adoptions

The Rapid City Area School board approved proposed agreements and a change order for the Valley View roof replacement and spent the evening reviewing the district’s new website and app rollout, a proposal to open a virtual elementary program at Meadowbrook, and recommended new secondary science and world history resources.

The board voted to approve the proposed agreements after a motion and second; those agreements were presented to the board as finalized by negotiating groups and are slated for district ratification. The board also approved a change order for the Valley View roof replacement; Chief Financial Officer Mr. Sassy told the board the revised plan would deliver the “same quality of roof and save the district $34,000.”

Why it matters: the meeting combined routine, binding actions — such as the contract approvals and construction change order — with policy- and program-level briefings that could affect how the district communicates with families, how it offers online instruction and which instructional materials teachers will use next school year.

New website and mobile app

District staff described progress on a planned migration to an Apogee-powered website and a companion mobile app, with a live rollout scheduled for April 11 and staff training completed the week of April 4. Presenters said the system centralizes messaging: a single message can publish to the live feed, district Facebook and Instagram pages, send text messages, calls and emails, and translate messages into families’ preferred languages recorded in Skyward.

Bobby (district communications staff) said the vendor offers online chat support and help-center videos and that the platform can translate phone calls, texts and emails into 320 languages based on families’ Skyward settings. He also demonstrated a Google Calendar integration intended to allow district- and school-level events to appear in one living calendar and noted the app asks users which schools and activity feeds they want notifications from when first installed.

Acting Superintendent Dr. Corey Strasser said the district intends the rollout to be incremental: the district will launch the product during the spring and refine the home page and school pages over the summer. “With the transition to the new website, we will continue offering online options, very similar to what we have before,” Strasser told the board when describing how virtual learning services will be preserved even as the district changes organizational structure for online programs.

Virtual elementary proposal

Strasser presented an information item proposing a virtual elementary program to be administered through Meadowbrook and housed in part at the Kevin Custer building. The proposal outlines a blended program model (both fully online options and in-person touch points), with a target enrollment of up to 40 students for the first year and staffing that would include two teachers plus clerical and administrative support.

The presentation said the program would use the district’s existing familiarity with the Edgenuity learning-management system (Edgenuity was identified as the proposed LMS), and noted some opportunities to use Title funds in certain schools to reduce class sizes where appropriate. Strasser framed the proposal as preliminary and said district staff will return with more detailed budget figures and operational plans; the transcript did not specify a per‑student or total cost for Edgenuity or for operating the virtual elementary program.

Secondary science and world history resources

The board received recommendations from the curriculum adoption committees after pilot testing in classrooms. The committee recommended Discovery Science for the middle-school science program (the presenters noted Discovery’s curriculum connects to elementary resources and includes a teacher-facing “Discovery Experience” package). For high school science the committee recommended: Lab-Aids for biology; Cengage for chemistry; Cognite for physical science; and a publisher for physics that the committee said best represented state standards (the transcript did not list a publisher name for physics). The world-history committee recommended TCI for the assigned world-history course.

Committee members said teachers asked that professional development for the new resources happen before summer so teachers have time to plan. The committees also requested time to inventory, surplus or reorganize existing science equipment so new materials and supplies can be accommodated in classrooms.

Board procedure items and ballot draw

As a procedural item the district conducted the random drawing to determine ballot order for two trustee areas. The draw produced these ballot positions as read aloud at the meeting: Area 3 — first on the ballot: Angela Bradsky Rafferty; second: Michael (surname recorded with variant spellings in the transcript). Area 6 — first on the ballot: Brian Johnson; second: Jamie Clapham. The transcript contains inconsistent spellings for Area 3’s second candidate (the clerk read one spelling and later the district clerk restated a variant); the article lists both the first candidate and notes the transcript’s ambiguity for the second candidate rather than risk misidentification.

Votes at a glance

- Approval of proposed agreements: motion moved and seconded; chair called for ayes and recorded approval. (Motion passed.) - Valley View roof replacement change order: motion moved and seconded; motion carries. CFO said the revised plan saves about $34,000. (Motion passed.)

What the board directed next

Board members asked that the website/app rollout be used as a learning exercise: launch now, refine over summer and then expand training and roles at each school. On the virtual elementary program, trustees and staff discussed next steps on budget detail, marketing to families (including homeschool families), and operational logistics; the superintendent said a more detailed proposal will return to the board for action at a future meeting.

Speakers and sources quoted in this report are identified in the board’s meeting transcript and included in the article’s speaker list. The article confines attributions to comments recorded in the transcript and does not infer outcomes or decisions beyond what was stated on the record.