HOISINGTON — The USD 431 Hoisington School Board met at its regular meeting on Monday evening, and voted to add or changed new classes for the 2013-14 school year.
The classes added or changed will be Culinary Essentials, Event Planning & Management, Entrepreneurship for two semesters, Interpersonal Communication, and Environmental Science.
Culinary Essentials is a Career Pathway class in Restaurant and Event  Management, which is eligible for career and technical education funds. The school will no longer offer Meal Management.
Another funded class that will be added is Event Planning & Management, which is also a Restaurant and Event Management Pathway class.
The Entrepreneurship class will be available for two semesters. In the past, it was only offered for one semester. This will allow the students more time to develop and their own small business.
An instructor from Barton Community College will come to Hoisington High School to teach Certified Medical Assistant Class. This class will receive funding from the state.
Interpersonal Communication will be offered instead of an early graduation class, English Literature. IPC will offer technical writing skills. This passed 4-1. The remainder of the classes passed 5-0.
Finally, Environmental Science will be added as a freshmen science credit instead of Earth & Space Science. This will meet the BioChemistry Pathway which will be connected to a Medical or Science pathway.
In other business, the district will hold a community planning session this Friday and Saturday with 32 participants from the community. They will make a written report of the strengths and weaknesses of the district and action plans for the future.
A new telephone contract was approved, which will provide new phones for every room and voice mail capabilities. The district has had a problem with dropped calls and downtime. They are looking at 70 phones.
In final business, the board approved:
• Grants to teachers for various projects.
• Two nonstaff drivers.
• The sale of outdated computer equipment for $50 each.
Superintendent Bill Lowry informed the board that the state auditor will be in the district next week.