---

The work doesn’t stop over the summer months for many in school district administration positions, including the superintendent.  

North Branch District 138 School Board members last week heard from Supt. Sara Paul about progress being made on a couple of new initiatives. The proposed Boka Haven residence for elderly residents, which recently received permitting from the city, is slated to be a site for a CNA program for North Branch students.  The plan is to offer the course next year. Details are being worked out for the hands-on programming to work towards nurse aide certification.

The staff have also been getting a North Branch District mobile phone app up and running.  Supt. Paul said a “soft launch” is already underway and incoming students and their families will get information on accessing and using the app.  It’s available at Google Play and the App Store.  

More and more district families are getting on the Internet through mobile phones and the district website formatting doesn’t translate well to phone screens.

In a new development, North Branch is one of three school districts selected to get involved in a state public health suicide prevention and mental health effort.  

The plan is to bring in Chisago County Public Health and Therapeutic Services Agency (TSA) to review how this pilot program will work.  The high school is looped in through Principal Link and a building representative willing to work with the program, if it’s given the green light.

Supt. Paul said there’s still time to opt out if consensus is that the parameters aren’t a good fit for #138.  

She will know more after a final meeting being held this week, she added. 

With Board member Grovender absent— the Board adopted policies upon their second reading and okayed first readings on others.  

The Board heard that there’s a lot of restructuring of policies to be done to align wording with the latest to come out of the state legislature.  

One highlight is policy for stocking and administering the opioid overdose response product Naloxone.  The policy calls for information related to use of the narcotic antidote to be private data.

Supt. Paul also commended the district transportation services 4.0, for being staffed up and not requiring any route eliminations or drastic schedule changes for the upcoming year.

---