At its monthly meeting the Yankton School District 63-3 board heard student presentations and approved curriculum committee recommendations that include a three-year behavioral-health partnership with Mount Marty and a pilot of heart-rate monitors for PE classes. A visiting HSC director credited the district with helping a previously displaced student graduate.
The Yankton School District 63-3 board unanimously approved its meeting agenda, minutes, the consent agenda and renewed membership in the Eastern South Dakota food-buying cooperative, a five-district purchasing group the district helped form roughly 20 years ago.
After public comment urging a November ballot, the Yankton School District 63-3 board voted 4–1 to hold the 2026 school board election on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, and approved a combined-election agreement with Yankton County.
The board approved the Yankton Middle School and Yankton High School 2026–27 course catalogs, endorsing minor middle-school edits and high-school changes including discrete course numbers for speech and American literature, a choral-focused music course, and a dual-credit psychology partnership with Mount Marty University.
Students and staff reported on Educators Rising internships and Lincoln Elementary's SEL data (noting declines in incidents and duration after interventions); the board also approved a day trip for the Yankton High School choir to Omaha.
Representative Julie Elk, Senator Lauren Nelson and Representative Mike Stevens told the Yankton School Board that property-tax bills, school funding debates and possible statewide technology restrictions are likely priorities in the 2026 legislative session, and they urged local leaders to remain engaged.
Historian Jerome Clemish and former teacher Linda Balfany told the Yankton School District board that local special-education services began decades before federal law; trustees heard current program size (about 490 students), staffing (about 130 specialists) and an approximate special-education budget of $6.3 million.
The school board approved the meeting agenda, the Nov. 10 minutes and the consent agenda by roll-call votes and later adjourned by voice vote at the meetings close.
District staff and health partners told the board Yanktons R-CORP award from HRSA will fund a three-year, $1,140,000 program to create a behavioral-health education pathway with dual-credit classes, internships and local training to recruit students into mental-health careers.
At a Yankton School District 63-3 board meeting, a Stewart Elementary student, Tobias Evans, demonstrated how his interpreter supports classroom communication while staff highlighted recent school events including a trunk-or-treat that drew roughly 400 students and an upcoming Nov. 24 concert.
