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tra-curricular event. In the past the office has been flooded with phone calls at the last minute asking to dismiss students to go watch an event, such as the elementary Christmas concert or a soccer game.
• All the Groton School District policies are now online at the district website: www.grotonarea.com. Just click on the "Board of Education" tab and then look under the "District Policy Manual" link. Most of the policies are listed; a few are still being formatted and will be available soon.
• Also new to the website is a link to non-athletic events on the R-school online calendar. This calendar allows for notifications if events are changed or rescheduled. The link should appear on the home page of the website or go to www.northeastsdconference.com and click on Groton Area High School.
• Board members approved the adoption of the Charlotte Danielson Framework for doing teacher evaluations. Groton has been part of a pilot program for the last year and will now use the program for the next school year with a few modifications. Instead of doing formal evaluations every year, teachers will be split into two groups, with different requirements. One year will be the formal evaluation while the other year will be more of a showcase to prove what was done in the classroom.
• Monday's meeting marked the end of the fiscal year for the school district and Business Manager Mike Weber requested some contingency fund transfers to cover some end of the year funds. Approval was granted to transfer $1,850 to the RtI fund from the general fund to cover some changes in salaries. Approval was also granted in the transfer $4,150 within the capital outlay budget to different accounts within building and special needs accounts.
• Weber reported that all the schools accounts were healthy. He also stated that local revenue will soon eliminate the need for state aid. It was projected that the school will no longer receive state aid sometime next year.
• In other business: The school district locked in their Natural Gas price for the next year at 58 cents/therm and accepted the quotes from Duane's for the school district's fuel needs and the Groton Independent to be the official school newspaper.
• Alexa Schuring was hired as a volunteer assistant volleyball coach for the next school year and approval was given for an open enrollment for a junior kindergartener.
• The board also saw a presentation by the robotics program at the beginning of the meeting. This will be the third year that Groton has participated in the robotics program. The program now has two teams, a varsity and a junior varsity. The teams begin with a starter kit that contains various pieces and the students then must design and program the robot to perform the stated objectives. The objectives change from year to year. This year they are required to place objects at different levels.

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