A shift in leadership topped agenda items in a mid-January meeting of the Haxtun Board of Education. Long-time Board President Rich Starkebaum stepped down from his role in light of recent health circumstances. Starkebaum resigned from his position as president, but plans to remain on the Board and complete his current term.

The Jan. 17 meeting opened with amending the agenda to add a line item to revise policy IC/ICA; that policy deals with calendar and instruction time. Later in the meeting when the policy appeared in action items, board members voted to make temporary revisions to IC/ICA to allow for remote learning to count as instruction time. The changes come in light of the amount of snow days used over the past seven weeks.

Haxtun School District allowed, as all do, for a certain number of snow days per year when drafting and approving the school calendar each year. Due to record amounts of snow fall since the beginning of December, the District has utilized all allotted snow days. Snow fall last week forced administration to call additional snow days beyond what has been used, therefore causing a need to shift to remote learning for students. Haxtun students had a snow day last Wednesday, using the last one allotted for the year, and went to remote learning on Thursday. Friday's school day began with a two-hour late start.

Prior to last week's storm and the use of a snow day, remote learning day and a late start, the following changes were made to the 2022-23 calendar to reflect snow days used including Dec. 13-16 and a late start on Jan. 3.

To kick off action items, board members approved Starkebaum's resignation letter as board president. In his letter, Starkebaum said he was recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer and his treatment will require care in Greeley and Fort Collins over the next few months.

"I believe it would be in the best interest of the Haxtun School District that I resign as President of the Haxtun Board of Education effective as of the January board meeting. I respectively ask the Board to allow me to fill out the remainder of my term knowing that I may miss or have to attend electronically, some of the meetings," Starkebaum said.

His term on the local board of education expires this November.

"This has been a very difficult decision for me to make. We, as a board, have always worked together with the ultimate goal of doing what is best for our students," Starkebaum said. "Stepping down as President, I take pride in the improvements we have made to our facilities, the adoption of new curriculums and hiring the best staff possible. We have one of the brightest superintendents available in Marsha. I ask that as we change leadership we continue to work closely with her and the administrative staff. Haxtun will continue to be the school of choice for our kids."

Next steps included appointing a new president and vice president. Board Member Amy Kilgour was elected to serve as president and, since she was the acting vice president, fellow board member ChristiAnne Gibson was elected to serve as vice president.

Kilgour was elected to the Haxtun Board of Education 15 years ago. Gibson began her first term on the board following the District's most recent election.

In other business the board:

• Voted to revise the classified salary schedule and the extra duty salary schedule to include increases to go along with changes to minimum wage specifically regarding maintenance work pay and activity driver pay;

• Approved the revised 2022-23 budget. Superintendent Marsha Cody said the budget is revised every January to align with actual numbers for things like state equalization, property tax and student count. A draft is typically given in May, it is approved in June and revisited in January of each year;

• Approved Patrick Martinez's resignation as part-time janitor;

• Approved Jessica Ayala as a substitute paraprofessional;

• Approved Whitney Cummings as a substitute teacher;

• Approved a motion to cash in CD 6600 and place the money in a new 12-month CD at Points West Community Bank with an interest rate of 3.4 percent.