• Superintendent Joe Schwan talked about the sticker shock that spectators have seen at the price of admission of the region volleyball tournament. The cost increased by $2 a person from $7 to adults to $5 for students. Even at Britton, knowing there would be lots of questions, there was a sign posted on the door stating that the admission price was set by the South Dakota High School Activities Association.
• Schwan said it has been 11 years since the price of admission was raised, but the fact that it went up $2 has raised a lot of eyebrows and raised a lot of questions. Schwan reported that the SDHSAA is setting up a foundation of which the SDHSAA has already contributed $55,000 towards it and that $1 from each admission ticket will be added to the foundation. Schwan said no one will really see any benefit until the foundation gets $1 million, but even more importantly, it is really vague of the purpose of the foundation. About 70 percent of the revenue raised by the SDHSAA comes from post regular season games.
• The roof has been fixed. "It is done correctly," said Dean Marske of HKG Architects. "The skylights were never done right. There have been problems from day one," he said. There was also an issue with the transition between the new and the old building that had to be dealt with. Now the next question that needs to be answered is how much of the $11,400 repair bill is going to be paid for by the district. "That is something you will need to discuss," Marske said.  He said that the amount is not zero because of some additional work that was done, but it's also not the full amount. He suggested that the board talk with their attorney to figure out a plan of action.
• Parents will be getting a letter from the school district on the night of parent-teacher conferences. The letter will outline the new Smart Assessment Tests that will be given. The new assessment tests will be taken on-line and will replace the paper and pencil Dakota Step Test.
• There will be several student teachers working in the Groton Area School District November 18 through December 11. Miranda Haugen and Samantha Azbel will be working at the middle/high school in special education, Danielle Weisz will be working with Janel Lone and Sabrena Schmidt will be working with Deb Winburn at the elementary school.
• NSU Professor Andria Moon and her education class came to Groton Elementary to observe the Reading RtI process in action. Elementary Principal Dan Dalchow said, "Students and the professor were very interested in our progress monitoring and ways we implement interventions at strategic and intensive levels as well

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