The Board of Trustees for LCSD#2 met in their regular meeting on Wednesday, October 13. Here are a few items of note from that meeting. The full video can be found at lcsd2.org.

• Financials

Mr. JC Instep addressed the board and stated that the district was transitioning to Liberty Mutual Insurance and that initial inspections for this process had taken place.

“The gentleman said in 30 years he had never seen a district with age and asset at this level,” Inskeep reported. “He said that He had never seen this quality. The quote in the report stated The highest standard of facilities I’ve seen.”

Mr. Inskeep emphasized the work of those in the financial offices of the district were working on being as transparent as possible. “For example, Food Services is worth $1.4 million,” he said. “We have every name and salary and every hour they work and we are reporting on every dollar.”

Transition to Electronic Door Access and Controlled Entry – 

Mr. Inskeep also reported that he and an administration team had walked through some basic systems for a move to up dated access and entry.

“We said if this goes live, what does it look like,” he stated. “We realized that before we implement this, we need to answer some hard and honest questions about how you lock a campus down. That’s where we want to go. We did an assessment and site surveys. Fire Marshall compliances and procurement. We spoke with Mr. Hicks about a cost narrative for each facility. We talked about how to secure the individual vestibules. We’re going to work on some things that work and don’t work. We’ll be putting them on some outside doors so they get in the weather and see how they react.”

Mr. Inskeep pointed out that the new technology would show a full body image of those looking to enter the building. The process of this improved security and access is ongoing.

Attendance – 

Superintendent Matt Erickson reported that across the district, each building has a goal of improving their attendance percentage.

“We’ve had a couple of work sessions and we believe collectively as a board that attendance is the access point of instruction,” he stated. “Our main area of focus this year is based on attendance. Our attendance this year is at 82.3%. We’re hoping to increase that by five percentage points and each building has this goal.”

Erickson noted that some may ask why this is the focus of the district at this time.

“We believe that when students are present at least 90% of the time, they receive strong instruction,” he stated.  “When they have regular support and relationships it keeps them connected. We’ll be putting out surveys in the next couple of weeks. Then we will have a follow-up survey in April and report on that. For example there will be a question about things that have made it more difficult to students to attend class and there will be multiple answers on that.”

Erickson noted that a follow-up survey would be likely sent out in April as well.

Enrollment – 

Erickson also reported on the downward trend of enrollment for the district.

“We are seeing a concerning trend if you look at our enrollment for October of 2026,” he said. “We have a total of 2,741 students, which is down 12 from last month. This number is down 140 from last year. There are a lot of factors which we’ve discussed but that’s the reality of where we are.”

The board noted a donation of $499 for House supplies for Afton Elementary. The school is divided up into several different houses for in-school learning.

Food Services –

New Director of Food Services, Shelley Balls, addressed the board with a thorough look at the district efforts in that department.

“We have served 23,871 school lunches, 5892 breakfasts 885 adult lunches so far this school year,” she reported. “This is down about 41 lunches per day, which matches up with our enrollment numbers.”

Balls noted that overall numbers are down, but the participation percentage of those choosing to eat school meals is up for the first two months of the school year. She also stated that the state and the district are making more and more efforts to focus on farm to school items with food coming from farms in the region.

“One goal is to try and get more protein and less sugar in our breakfasts,” she said.  “It will look a little different moving forward.”

Superintendent Contract – 

The board voted on the superintendent’s contract as it is scheduled to move from a two-year cycle back to a three-year cycle. Darnell Simpson, Jed Johnson, Lynn Call, Connie Day, David Jenkins and Timothy Teichert voted in the affirmative on this item with Jake Long voting nay.