Jasper School Board Holds Busy Meeting

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Published on May 18 2017 4:00 pm
Last Updated on May 18 2017 4:00 pm
Written by Greg Sapp

The meeting of the Jasper County Unit 1 school board this week was a busy one.

The Board met students Keri Zumbahlen and Jaclyn Street who were part of the Team Quest that won first place in Regionals. Ryan Hagen and Kyle Schafer were the other members of the team, but were unable to attend.

The Board gave approval for Ag Business Management as a consumer education credit.

Alexis Cavazos, Victoria Yager and Kaylee Darnall attended the Regional Office of Education's Youth Mental Health Training. This course teaches participants the risk factors and warning signs of a variety of mental health challenges common among adolescents, including anxiety, depression, psychosis, eating disorders, AD/HD, disruptive behavior disorders, and substance abuse disorder.

The Board gave approval to advertise for bids for a small economical car to be utilized for many trips outside of the district, and heard that Superintendent Andrew Johnson has set a meeting with architect Jason Wright of ADG Architectural of Mt. Carmel. The meeting was scheduled to explore options for buildings in the district and to assess potential costs for the Ste. Marie building.

The Board also agreed to purchase seven buses for about $80,000 each and one wheelchair bus for just under $87,000, all of which will be powered by gasoline. The plan is to sell approximately 11 existing buses to reduce the fleet. The goal is to get to 35 buses in the fleet with all buses less than five years old.

In personnel moves, the Jasper board accepted a letter of intent from Darlene Walker to enter the three-year retirement incentive plan with the irrevocable intent to retire at the end of the 2019-2020 school year; accepted the resignation of Brock Tarr as high school assistant football coach and of Josh Benefiel as junior high head baseball coach; approved the resignation of Yvonne Will as assistant high school musical director, hiring Jessie Smith as social worker at Newton Elementary, Amy Casey as junior high girls basketball head coach, and Brock Tarr to be high school head cross country coach. The Board agreed to hire Christina Murray, Darlene Coffin and Jacque Holsapple to teach the Summer Bridge Program for Grades K to 2, Whitney Ritchhart and Stephanie Klingler to teach Grades 3 thru 6, and Emily Myers for high schoolers.

Board members agreed to hire Jan Thompson as high school JV boys basketball coach, agreed to advertise for a fulltime Title Aide at Ste Marie, agreed to advertise for an assistant high school boys basketball coach and an assistant high boys and girls track coach, a shared position, as well as an assistant boys tennis coach and assistant girls tennis coach.

The Board hired Katelyn Hardiek for the student summer technology position, and hired Kristen Hardiek and Donovan Cantrell for summer transportation building and grounds positions. The Board approved a 1.9% pay increase for all classified staff and administrators and Josh Benefiel will move from a 10-month contract to a 10.5-month contract and will serve as principal of Ste. Marie Elementary and assistant principal at Newton Elementary, approved a collective bargaining agreement with the Jasper County Educational Association for the coming school year, approved transferring Darla Mahaffey to Newton Elementary from Ste. Marie Elementary as a PE teacher for the coming school year, and agreed to advertise for a junior high head baseball coach and a high school assistant football coach.