The Collins-Maxwell Community School District Board is scheduled to meet at 6:00 p.m. on August 19 at the District Office Board Room at Collins-Maxwell Middle School/High School in Maxwell. The agenda combines several policy reviews with proposed action on eighth-grade athletic participation, a building-automation upgrade, a bowling sharing agreement with Nevada, and 2026–27 middle/high school fundraisers.
Key Items on the Agenda
Eighth-Grade Participation in High School Athletics
The board is scheduled to consider a second reading of Code 504.06 governing eighth-grade participation in high school activities. The proposed framework treats high school participation as an exception rather than standard practice and calls for individual review of academic success, physical and emotional readiness, safety, and the interests of both the student and athletic program.
The packet includes an added provision allowing the district to deny eighth-grade participation when moving students to a high school athletic program would leave the corresponding middle school program unable to field or sustain a team.
The accompanying process calls for:
- A written recommendation from the head varsity coach addressing readiness, safety, the student's anticipated role, and effects on both middle and high school programs.
- A conference involving the student, parent or guardian, head coach, and superintendent or designee.
- Final approval by the superintendent or designee on a season-by-season basis.
- High-school-level academic, physical examination, concussion, insurance, conduct, attendance, and other participation requirements.
- A requirement that once an eighth-grader competes with the high school team, the student cannot return to the middle school team in that sport during the same season.
An accompanying request-and-agreement form documents the coach recommendation, administrative conference, student and parent acknowledgements, and final administrative decision.
Building-Automation Upgrade Proposals
The board is scheduled to review and act on a preventative-maintenance/building-controls proposal. The agenda lists three prices:
- Excel Mechanical: $15,500
- Woodman: $14,334
- Winona Controls: $15,235
The supporting material describes competing approaches to upgrading the elementary school's building-automation controls. Excel Mechanical proposes installing a Honeywell JACE 9000 controller, modifying existing building-automation graphics, alarms and histories, and commissioning the new system for $15,500.
Woodman's $14,334 base bid proposes a Distech EC-BOS-9 network manager, managed Ethernet switches, an uninterruptible power supply, migration of existing schedules and other system information, and verification of network communications. Existing field controllers and related equipment would remain in place.
Winona Controls proposes a $15,235 graphics head-end upgrade using a Nexus3-264 and rebuilt HTML5 graphics. Its proposal includes approximately 90 hours of installation, programming, verification and training labor and states that other existing control components are not included for replacement or repair.
Bowling Sharing Agreement With Nevada
The board is scheduled to consider a bowling sharing agreement with Nevada. According to the packet, Nevada is asking for coaching costs to be divided according to each district's percentage of participating athletes. Nevada currently has one coach and may add a second as participation grows.
Transportation would not be provided for bowlers under the arrangement described in the packet. The listed schedules are:
- Girls: Practice begins November 2, 2026; state meet February 9–11, 2027.
- Boys: Practice begins November 16, 2026; state tournaments February 22–24, 2027.
The agreement appears on both the information/discussion portion of the agenda and the subsequent action agenda.
Policy and Governance Items
Broad Second-Reading Policy Package
The board is scheduled to consider a large set of summer policy primers at second reading. The package spans board governance, employment, students, instruction, technology, health and safety, and public records.
Among the policies in the packet are:
- Board elections and public notice of board meetings.
- Equal employment opportunity and affirmative action.
- Licensed and classified employee illness leave.
- Open enrollment procedures.
- Student expression and student publications.
- Student conduct and disruptive behavior.
- Administration and self-administration of student medication.
- Basic instruction and special education.
- Physical education and private instruction.
- Gifted and talented programming.
- Religious-based exclusion from school programs.
- Technology and instructional materials.
- Student guidance and counseling.
- Responsible technology use and social networking.
- Stock prescription medications.
- Public examination of district records.
Several drafts contain choices, bracketed language, or other provisions requiring district-specific decisions. For example, the open-enrollment draft notes that the board needs to determine how much approval authority to delegate to the superintendent and establish its approach to transportation into sending districts.
Student Discipline and Classroom Removal
Policy 503.11 on disruptive behavior is also scheduled for board consideration. The packet addresses teacher authority to remove students for violent and nonviolent disruptions while requiring due process and compliance with protections for students with disabilities.
The proposed procedures distinguish between violent and nonviolent disruptions. For nonviolent disruptions, a teacher may remove a student to supervision by the principal or designee for at least 30 minutes. For grades 6–12, the draft generally prevents readmission to the classroom until at least the next school day after the required discussion between the teacher and administrator.
For violent disruptions, removal is required under the proposed language. A student could not be readmitted to a teacher's classroom when the removal resulted from an assault on that teacher and the teacher does not consent to the student's return.
The policy material also addresses IEP and Section 504 responsibilities, staff review of student plans, behavioral supports, and procedures for repeated classroom removals.
Capital Assets Policy
Policy 802.8 and Regulation 802.8-R(2) are presented as drafts for first reading. The proposed capital-assets framework would establish the district's accounting and management system for tangible and intangible capital assets.
The draft generally uses $5,000 as the capitalization threshold for individual capital assets and intangible assets meeting the applicable criteria, while school-lunch-program assets are subject to a $500 threshold. The proposed policy also calls for monthly updates for acquisitions, disposals and transfers and assigns the superintendent responsibility for counting and reconciling capital assets annually on June 30.
Technology and Student Policies to Watch
One of the second-reading policies, Policy 605.04 on Technology and Instructional Materials, addresses digital instruction for elementary students. The draft contains bracketed language for a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade daily digital-instruction limit that cannot exceed 60 minutes per school day, while allowing specified exceptions such as IEP or Section 504 accommodations, assistive technology, assessments and dedicated computer-science instruction.
The policy also calls for board adoption or renewal of one-to-one digital-device programs and requires a technology-adoption checklist addressing instructional purpose, age appropriateness, content-filtering limitations, and student-data practices.
Another second-reading item, Policy 804.5, addresses voluntary stocks of emergency prescription medication. The draft provides for each attendance center to maintain at least one pediatric and one adult dose of epinephrine delivery systems, pediatric and adult bronchodilator supplies, and one dose of naloxone or another opioid antagonist if the district maintains such a stock-medication program.
Financial and Consent Agenda
The consent agenda includes previous meeting minutes, bills for payment, financials, and personnel items.
The August claims report covers July 16 through August 19, 2026 and lists a district total of $1,110,175.35. The report breaks that amount among Activity, General, Nutrition, and Trust accounts.
The packet specifically notes that June financial statements are not yet final because the fiscal year has ended. Final June financials are not expected until sometime in September, so the packet states there is nothing to approve at this time under that financials item.
Personnel items listed for the consent agenda include new hires or assignments for coaching, elementary and middle/high school associate positions, part-time bus driving, volunteer volleyball assistance, and musical direction. The packet also lists resignations involving paraprofessional, musical director, and food-service positions.
Fundraisers
The agenda includes discussion followed by proposed action on middle school/high school fundraisers for the 2026–27 school year. The packet identifies the fundraiser item and a supporting link but does not provide enough substantive extracted detail to characterize individual fundraising activities or amounts.
The agenda includes a public-comment period. Written or telephone comments were to be submitted to the board secretary by noon on August 19, 2026, according to the packet.
Board comments also include two upcoming dates:
- IASB Board Conference: November 19–20 at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. The packet lists November 19 programming from 8:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. and November 20 from 8:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
- Board Work Session: September 23 at 5:00 p.m. The planned work includes sharing findings from the superintendent's entry plan and developing board and superintendent goals.
What to Watch at the Meeting
The action agenda sets up several consequential choices rather than documenting completed decisions. The board is scheduled to consider the 2026–27 fundraisers, the second-reading policy primers, Policy 503.11, the eighth-grade athletics policy, the building-automation proposal, and the bowling sharing agreement.
The building-controls item presents three differently scoped proposals ranging from $14,334 to $15,500, while the athletics proposal would establish a structured process for exceptional eighth-grade participation and explicitly protect the district's ability to sustain middle school teams. The extensive policy package also contains district-specific choices and draft language, making the board's treatment of those provisions an important point to watch.
