Galion BOE honors students, approves MOAC

By Rachel Mendell — Inquirer Editor -

The Galion Board of Edu­ca­tion hon­ored some of its bright­est and best last night dur­ing the reg­u­lar meet­ing. Stoan John­son and Erik Miller were hon­ored for their art cho­sen for the Young People’s Art Exhi­bi­tion. Their art­work will be shown in Colum­bus. Jacob Bash, David Buehrer, Tay­lor Burkhart, Scott Kid­well and Maranda John­son were hon­ored for achiev­ing supe­rior rat­ings in their music solos. Blair But­ler, Beth Jarvis, Cara Rig­don, Sierra John­son, Adam Rine­hart and Michaela Car­pen­ter were praised for their excel­lent rat­ings for their solos in the OMEA com­pe­ti­tion. In the area of boys bas­ket­ball Marc McCuen, Ridge Durbin and Trey Quain­tance were given cer­tifi­cates for their accom­plish­ments. Mem­bers of the girls bas­ket­ball team were also hon­ored: Pey­ton Beachy and Saman­tha Hamar. Wrestlers were also hon­ored: Nick Flow­ers, Justin McDaniel, Dan Ren­ner, Zac Tupps, Brent Espos­ito, Mason Fry, Justin Kleinknecht, Deaken McCoy, JT Har­ris and Tris­tan Schroeder.

Trea­surer Linda Kid­well pre­sented a study by Mid-Ohio Edu­ca­tional Ser­vice Cen­ter which showed finan­cial changes within the Galion dis­trict in the past 10 years. In 2000, 379 of the 2,552 chil­dren, ages 5 to 17, were con­sid­ered within the poverty dis­tinc­tion. In 2010 those num­bers changed to 607 chil­dren in the poverty level out of 2,311. Real prop­erty val­u­a­tions went from $165,278,600 in tax year 2009–2010 to 164,438,140 in tax year 2011–2012. This lead to a decrease in real estate tax rev­enue for the district.

Kathy Jen­ney pre­sented the No Child Left Behind flex­i­bil­ity request sent by Stan W. Heffner, state super­in­ten­dent, to the fed­eral gov­ern­ment ask­ing for changes in the No Child Left Behind plan includ­ing let­ter grad­ing of dis­trict report cards and cut­ting red tape. Other states are push­ing for the same reforms, said Jenney.

In per­son­nel issues the res­ig­na­tion of Rashan Rush was accepted. Extra duty was assigned to Randy End­s­ley, JV base­ball coach; Sean Maguire, track coach; Joshual Rig­gle and Ryan Tan­ner, base­ball coaches.

Cheryl Wash­ing­ton was approved for the retire-rehire once year plan. Per­son­nel for the 1 to 1 pilot pro­gram were approved as well as teach­ers for the Teacher-to-Teacher Pro­fes­sional Devel­op­ment Pro­gram who will receive $100 from grant funds.

In agree­ments, the board approved con­tracts with K12 School Con­sul­tants LLC, BlueSky Meet­ing Solu­tions for elec­tronic inter­nal meet­ings, and con­tracts with River Val­ley and Crest­line for open enroll­ment of Galion residents.

Dona­tions were accepted includ­ing $3,500 for the Show­tunes Stu­dent Activ­ity Fund, $673 for a com­pe­ti­tion buzzer sys­tem for Aca­d­e­mic Chal­lenge, $500 for the high school spring musi­cal, $361 for the sec­ond grade trip to the Bucyrus Can­dle Fac­tory, $209 for the Biggest Loser Com­pe­ti­tion at the mid­dle school, $199 for the Math Online Mem­ber­ship and $400 for the cam­pus wear fund from Life­touch National School Studios.

The new social stud­ies cur­ricu­lum was pre­sented to the board and the board passed it on the first reading.

The board approved revi­sions made to the 1 to 1 pro­gram poli­cies. Supt. Kathy Jen­ney added that the Inter­net fea­ture on each of the stu­dent lap­tops can be pro­grammed to turn off at any­time, as per par­ent pref­er­ence or for dis­ci­pli­nary measures.

The board will be ask­ing the state for four waiver days for either May or August to allow for more pro­fes­sional train­ing in the 1 to 1 program.

The board accepted the invi­ta­tion to mem­ber­ship to the Mid-Ohio Ath­letic Con­fer­ence. The board approved a $500 stipend for the teach­ers involved in the solo and ensem­ble musi­cal competitions.

After fur­ther research and dis­cus­sion, Kevin Early rec­om­mended to the board that the new bus garage project be built using Pro­fes­sional Design Ser­vices and Con­struc­tion Man­ager at Risk Ser­vices instead of Design Built ser­vices. The board approved the trea­surer to adver­tise for the change.

Two poli­cies were read and passed by the board on the first read­ing, 1) the rate of con­tri­bu­tion by admin­is­tra­tors toward health insur­ance costs – all admin­is­tra­tors will be con­tribut­ing equally, and 2) a per­for­mance bonus sys­tem for dis­trict administrators.

There will be a spe­cial board meet­ing March 21 at 6:30 p.m. The board moved into exec­u­tive ses­sion to dis­cuss per­son­nel mat­ters. There was no fur­ther busi­ness after the meeting.