North Clay Board Institutes Major Cuts

North Clay school board members Thursday acted on a series of cuts in light of fiscal concerns and uncertainties over what funding will be received from the State.

The North Clay board cut the number of sports to be offered to two boys and two girls high school sports and two boys and two girls junior high sports.  No transportation will be provided to any athletics on behalf of the district, with students, community and the conferences involved to decide what sports were chosen for a two-year period.

The Board voted to limit the number of non-conference activities and freeze any uniform purchases, while limiting the maximum number of miles to be traveled for non-conference competition.

The Board also approved a series of other cuts with the exception of setting student fees and deciding upon bus routes and stops.  The motion includes cutting athletic director stipends, reducing two teaching positions through retirement at the high school, cutting the assistant principal, transportation director and district athletic director, reducing a Title I teacher and moving that person to another position, reducing the grade school librarian position, cutting the guided learning aide position, cutting one cook position, cutting one custodian position, possibly releasing aides in April, cutting the high school Art program, and enforcing that no school bus shall be used for any non-educational trip without all expenses reimbursed in full. 

Also cut were all coaching stipends, sponsor stipends for Scrabble Club, USNC Club, Drama Club, Business Club, Spanish Club, Class Play, Science Club, Yearbook, Multimedia stipend, band at games stipend, and all concert stipends.  There were also some cuts to be made that were administrative items.

Also last night at Louisville, the Board accepted resignations from David Brown and Lynsey Thoele as of the end of the school year, honorably dismissed Marge Dettmer as of the end of the school year, honorably released all coaching stipends for athletics until those can be restored at a later date, honorably released all extracurricular stipends for the list of clubs and organizations cut until those can be restored at a later date, and accepted the resignation of Susan Webster as a cook as of the end of the school year.

The North Clay board also approved May 11 as high school graduation date with Baccalaureate at 2pm and graduation at 3pm and set 8th grade promotion for May 14 at 6:30pm.  Mowing and trimming work was awarded to Clay County Rehabilitation for the same price as last year, approved a change in the school year calendar due to a snow day and set next year's school calendar, and accepted a $2,500 donation for the Ag program sponsored by Monsanto on behalf of Marty Poehler.

The North Clay board is having a special meeting today at 3pm to meet in closed session regarding personnel matters.

The Board has also scheduled a special meeting for 7pm on Thursday, March 25 to discuss possible private funding that could restore particular sports within the district.