The Greene County School Board met in regular session Wednesday.

The meeting started with a COVID-19 update. Superintendent Tim Christensen said since the beginning of the school year, there have been 49 students and 20 staff that have been out of school due to COVID-19. The Board then decided to continue to not require masks, despite the temporary inconjunction from a federal judge on the state law that bans mandatory masks in schools. The Board also approved to switch to a weekly COVID-19 report on Fridays from Christensen and continue to monitor the situation overall.

The Board then approved the second reading of board policy changes as presented, five fundraising requests, and two out of state trip requests for Greene County FFA to the national convention and the vocal department to Worlds of Fun. Additionally, the Board approved increasing the starting hourly wage for nutrition employees from $10 per hour to $11.20 per hour and give those employees who were making less than that an increase as well. They also approved increasing the substitute employee pay from $120 per day to $135 for substitute teachers.

The Board then set a public hearing date for its October 20th meeting at 6:30pm for the flexibility funds, which includes taking $75,000 from the homeschool assistance program into the flexibility funds and use it in the pre-kindergarten and Title Reading expenditures. The Board also accepted the 2020-21 certified annual report, as well as approved the 2020-21 allowable growth request for $448,000 for special education deficit and $10,969 for Limited English Proficiency, the board goals for the school year and appointed board member Steve Fisher as the delegate for the Iowa Association of School Boards.