NEW ULM — The District 88 school board motioned to approve several master agreements for teachers and district staff Thursday at its regular board meeting.

For teachers in the district, the board approved a master agreement containing a 6.107% increase in pay over two years with a new base year of $41,583 in their first year and $42,680 in the following year.

For support staff and paraprofessionals, a two-year total package of 5.664% with a starting wage of $12.83 and $13.77 for health paraprofessionals was approved.

Custodians, including grounds crews and lead custodians, receive a 7.037% increase during the two-year package in the master agreement.

In the clerical master agreement, secretaries and related staff receive an 8.51% increase over the two-year package agreement with starting wages of $13.80 and $14.31.

In other business, the board motioned to approve a New Ulm High School weightroom update proposal after a presentation from NUHS Assistant Principal and Activities Director Troy Guentzel.

Guentzel’s presentation provided a brief update on plans for an updated weightroom and training facility at the high school, and the goal is to provide a unified training environment for student athletes.

“So when you’re in that weightroom, you’re not a football player, you’re not a hockey player — you’re a New Ulm athlete,” Guentzel said.

The bulk of the update to the weightroom includes new, versatile training equipment with rubber buffer plates to mitigate damage to floors.

“The biggest thing is you used to — for exercises like (power) cleans and deadlifts — you had to have a platform to do them on which took up space,” Guentzel said. “We won’t have to worry about that anymore with the rubber buffer plates.”

Guentzel said the new design is simple but allows for more functionality. It’ll follow the presets already in place for the current weight training equipment, but will be able to hold more students at each weight or training station. He said up to four students can complete an exercise at each rack, and the idea is to be able to hold more students or athletes at a given time to unify training programs.

“The reason behind this was, we wanted to be able to have that whole volleyball team come on in there together as a team — all 40 of them — and get that work out in,” he said.

The updated weightroom is a joint venture with Unified Athletic Club and the coaching staff of NUHS.

The current bid for the project stands at about $83,000 with plans to sell the old equipment to another school district.

The next regular school board meeting is 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, in the district boardroom at 414 S. Payne St.

Gage Cureton can be emailed at gcureton@nujournal.com.