The Fairmont Area School Board on Tuesday received an update from Superintendent Joe Brown regarding the search for a co-principal at Fairmont High School. Principal Jim Davidson is retiring after this school year as 3-6 principal at Fairmont Elementary. Andy Traetow will leave his position at Fairmont High School to fill the vacancy.

Brown reported the district has received 30 applications for the high school co-principal position. He said it will take about a week to go through them to determine which applicants to interview.

Board president Rufus Rodriguez gave a report from a recent youth advisory group breakfast that took place at the high school. Rodriguez said one hot topic of conversation among students is confusion with the school’s cell phone policy.

There is a policy in the student’s handbook that was approved by the board last spring and it allows the teacher’s discretion in management of cell phones in their class.

He said there is a teacher advisory group at the high school and it thought it might be helpful to have consistency across the faculty in terms of enforcing the policy.

After some discussion and input from different parties, the school board decided the policy will remain as is.

The board approved several retirements requests effective June 3. These include Jodi Kristenson, instructional coach who has been employed with the district for 33 years; Jody Uttech, intervention specialist who has been with the district for 21 years; and Cyndi Johnson, English teacher who has taught for the district for 22 years.

The board accepted donations from:

Fairmont Elementary received a $500 donation from 3M to help fund the third-grade trip to Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls.

A second-grade class received a Donors Choose donation to purchase items valued at $240 for a “Morning Makerspace for Mini Engineers” project.

The Fairmont Girls Basketball Association donated $384 to purchase new basketballs for CER’s elementary basketball program and camps.

The Fairmont Boys Basketball Association donated $626 to purchase new basketballs for CER’s elementary basketball program and camps.