School Board disappointed, must work with state

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

Galion Board of Edu­ca­tion held its monthly meet­ing on Nov. 8. It was the first meet­ing fol­low­ing the elec­tion, in which the tax levy for the dis­trict failed by a landslide.

Super­in­ten­dent Kathy Jen­ney said she was dis­ap­pointed by the fail­ure of the levy. Now the dis­trict will sub­mit a finan­cial plan to the state, and mem­bers of the state auditor’s office were at the school cam­pus ear­lier that day to go over the process.

Another levy will appear on the bal­lot for the pri­mary elec­tion in May of 2013 (the dis­trict is required by the state to do this to see if more local dol­lars can be brought in, oth­er­wise the state may have to step in to help cut costs). Jen­ney asked the Board if the levy should be changed or kept the same as the one that failed.

Trea­surer Terri Day noted that, due to the new prop­erty val­u­a­tions from the County Auditor’s office, an 8 mill levy may not be enough. Board mem­bers decided to request more infor­ma­tion from the audi­tor so they could make an informed deci­sion on how many mills the dis­trict needs.

If the levy does pass, no col­lec­tions will be made in 2013.

Before the meeting’s reg­u­lar busi­ness, the golf team was rec­og­nized for qual­i­fy­ing for the North­west Dis­trict Golf Tour­na­ment: Con­nor Camp­bell, Evan Hug­gins (alter­nate), Clay­ton Kendall, Eric Pow­ell, Spencer Reynolds and Seth VanDine.

Head Coach Bryce Lehman, who was at the meet­ing, said the team placed sec­ond in the NCC and fin­ished the sea­son with a record of 10–2.

Day offered her finan­cial report for Octo­ber 2012. She explained that, over­all, the month’s expen­di­tures exceeded revenues.

In super­in­ten­dent updates, Jen­ney reminded Board mem­bers there will be a spe­cial work ses­sion on Nov. 29, where they will set goals and pri­or­i­tize ini­tia­tives for the district.

In other reports, min­i­mum wage increases 15 cents ($7.85) in Jan­u­ary of 2013. Jen­ney said the Board will need to approve the increase at the Decem­ber meet­ing. It will also need to con­sider if other pay lev­els should increase as well.

Dr. Sandy Pow­ell, direc­tor of cur­ricu­lum, explained a new fac­tor that the Ohio Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion is using to rate school dis­tricts called Com­bined Per­centile Rank­ings. CPR’s will be used to deter­mine the level of finan­cial sup­port each school will receive. Accord­ing to Pow­ell, Galion City Schools cur­rently receive medium support.

Board Pres­i­dent Den­nis Long brought up another item of busi­ness: Host­ing com­mu­nity meet­ings on a rou­tine basis. He said he felt there is a need for more com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the admin­is­tra­tion and the com­mu­nity. His idea was to hold infor­mal, open dis­cus­sions about every other month, where any­one would be wel­come to attend and com­ment or ask ques­tions, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of City gov­ern­ment as well as state leg­is­la­tors could be invited to par­tic­i­pate too.

“There’s a lot of good stuff going on in the schools, we have to get it out there,” Long added.

In super­in­ten­dent rec­om­men­da­tions, the Board approved the employ­ment of Nancy Rol­sten as a tutor at St. Joseph’s School, funded by Title 1 funds and Aux­il­iary Ser­vice Per­son­nel Fund­ing; approved Amy John­son to con­duct speech/language screen­ings for stu­dents at St. Joseph’s School, paid from IDEA-B Fed­eral Grant money; and approved Cheri’ Laugh­baum as fall drama advisor.

The Board also approved the employ­ment of two new cooks and sev­eral sub­sti­tute per­son­nel, as well as extra-duty assign­ments (see box). It also accepted the res­ig­na­tion of tech­ni­cian Jon Haas.

The Board approved the first read­ing for an addi­tion to the cur­ricu­lum called “21st Cen­tury Skills,” and changes to math intervention/enrichment for grade 5. There will be a set of 21st Cen­tury Skills for stu­dents in grades 3–5, as well as a set for grades 6–8.

Pow­ell explained that soft skills such as lead­er­ship, lis­ten­ing skills and pub­lic speak­ing are incor­po­rated into the new policy.

The final item the Board approved was a trans­porta­tion agree­ment for eli­gi­ble stu­dents to Mans­field St. Peter and the Rich­land Acad­emy of Arts. The costs will be split between Galion, Colonel Craw­ford and Crest­line school districts.

The Board then entered into exec­u­tive ses­sion to con­sider the appoint­ment, employ­ment, dis­missal, dis­ci­pline, pro­mo­tion, demo­tion or com­pen­sa­tion of a pub­lic employee, with no fur­ther action to be taken.

It’s next reg­u­lar meet­ing is Dec. 12 at 6:30 p.m., in the Mid­dle School com­puter lab.

The fol­low­ing extra-duty assign­ments were approved by the Board of Edu­ca­tion:
Colby Bright — JV Boys Bas­ket­ball Coach
Jor­dan Hatcher — 8th Grade Boys Bas­ket­ball Coach
Chris Hatcher — 7th Grade Boys Bas­ket­ball Coach
Michelle Har­mon — H.S. Win­ter Cheer­lead­ing Co-Advisor
Jena Opper­man — Head Soft­ball Coach
Josh Bar­nett — Mid­dle School Wrestling Coach
Ted Maglio — Fresh­man Boys Bas­ket­ball Coach

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Nov 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.