After feedback from a community meeting last month, the Albert Lea school district is in talks to provide an app to help with both crisis management and anonymous reporting in Albert Lea Area Schools.

District Superintendent Mike Funk said the app, CrisisGo, allows those with a computer or phone access to materials that help them deal with crisis situations.

For example, should a gas leak occur in a science lab, the app can provide teachers with a checklist of procedures to follow.

“So the teacher isn’t having to figure out, ‘Gas leak — OK, what do I do now?’” Funk said. The app is intended to take some of the stress out of the response, he said. Additionally, the app can show building maps and classroom rosters.

CrisisGo also provides a companion app called Safe2SpeakUp, which allows students, families and parents to anonymously report “known misbehaviors” — bullying, rumors of a fight, a threat at school.

“Both of these features I think are going to be very beneficial to our school district in the long-term,” Funk said.

The superintendent said the district’s work with the No Bully program and its ALICE training was an instigator for considering a partnership with CrisisGo. Safe2SpeakUp was also a determining part of that consideration.

“That feature itself was key to us,” he said.

According to Funk, the goal is to have necessary information pertaining to the school district sent to CrisisGo by the New Year. It should take six weeks to get the app up and running for the district, though Funk said the district hopes to have the anonymous reporting portion ready sooner.

And with a potential collaboration with Community Education, the district may be caring for children sooner through a child care program for district employees.

The project is still in its planning stages, Deputy Superintendent Lori Volz said, but a survey of staff showed potential need for two infant rooms, two toddler rooms and a preschool room staffed by 26 employees. The day care would function on the elementary school calendar, with 186 days of day care and four additional days for training day care staff.

It would be offered at Brookside Education Center during the day.

“The focus here is that we would be offering it to give priority to our employees that need day care for their children,” Volz said.

Open spots could be offered to the general public, but Volz said district interest showed employee children would fill the slots.

After supply costs are calculated, Volz said she expects the day care would be a break-even offering for the district.

“When we’re looking at doing retention things for our staff, I think that this is a great opportunity for us here to do something, and if we can do it as a break-even as Lori’s talking about, I think it’s a win for taking care of our students,” Funk said.

Board member Neal Skaar suggested the program could also potentially double as vocational training for older students interested in child care.

Volz said the district would need board approval to move ahead soon, as the licensing process can take three to six months and the district is hoping to implement the program in time for the start of the 2019-20 school year.

Work at the high school building is next on the list of approved bids as the district chunks out portions of the $24.615 million athletic facilities upgrades approved by voters in a May special election. Wagner Construction Co. submitted the lowest bid at $607,000. Volz said the district received eight bids for work on Albert Lea High School’s HVAC installation in the gym and swim locker room renovations.

“This is the best bid and it’s a very favorable bid,” Volz said.

Todd Wetzel, project manager for ICS consulting, said the original estimated cost for the project was around $750,000.

In other action:

• World’s Best Workforce and Achievement Integration Grant initiatives were combined by the state this year, said Director of Secondary Programs Kathy Niebuhr and Director of Elementary Services Mary Jo Dorman. Additionally, Niebuhr said Minnesota adopted statewide goals for the programs, which are also new. Those goals include a 90 percent achievement rate with no student group below 85 percent achievement by the year 2025 in third-grade reading and college and career readiness and consistent attendance and graduation rates by 2020.

School board chairman Ken Petersen asked whether the goal was a realistic one for the district.

“That’s certainly the question that came up at district curriculum committee,” Niebuhr said.

Last year’s numbers show 48.1 percent of district students are considered proficient in third-grade reading, 41 percent are proficient at eighth-grade math (determined as the indicator for career and college readiness), and the overall graduation rate was 80.4 percent, Niebuhr said.

“Is that (goal) realistic?” Niebuhr said. “It is the bar we’re being asked to achieve for our students.”

• The district approved 2018 and 2019 polling sites for district elections not held on the date of a statewide election. Volz said the change was a technicality requested by County Auditor Pat Martinson to bring the district in line with a change in city boundaries to avoid voter confusion. The change added Ward 1, Precinct 2 to the group of voters who cast their ballots at Brookside Education Center.

• The Albert Lea Education Association’s Gobble Wobble on Saturday raised $5,500, said Hawthorne Elementary School kindergarten teacher Kris Burnett. While over 100 people signed up, only 50 attended due to inclement weather. The money will fund scholarships for Albert Lea students pursuing education.