School budget OK'd (06/17/08)

Six months into the year, Jay Schools - and all other branches of local government - should have a finalized budget this week.

School corporation business manager Brad DeRome told the Jay School Board Monday that the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance will hold a final public hearing on all Jay County government budgets at 9 a.m. Thursday in the courthouse auditorium.

Approval of the school corporation's $34 million budget and all other local budgets has been delayed due to reassessment and re-trending of property values.

DeRome said Monday preliminary figures indicate that total assessed valuation in the county has risen by $68 million, and when assessed valuation rises the property tax rate falls. But because some property values rise faster than others, it's impossible at this point to know what individual property tax bills will look like.

And with the 2008 budget finally approved, the school corporation will begin work next month on building its 2009 budget.

Board members gave unanimous approval Monday, with board president Bryan Alexander absent, to a new memorandum of understanding with school support staff that reinstates some incremental pay increases that had been eliminated several years ago when the school system was facing financial difficulties.

"All support staff are going to receive at least a one percent increase in pay," DeRome said. The total impact of the new memorandum of understanding amounts to 3.8 percent in additional cost to the school district, he said.

Employees and the district will share in the cost of a five percent increase in the price of health insurance.

"We feel comfortable with the proposal," superintendent Tim Long told the board. "Dr. (Wood) Barwick and I have spent hours meeting with employees."

Long noted there is a dramatic increase in summer school attendance this year, since it is now tied to students passing the ISTEP test. At East Jay Middle School, 291 students are taking remediation classes. Another 98 are taking classes at West Jay and another 100 at Westlawn Elementary School.

Jay County High School principal Jeremy Gulley said 175 students are taking advantage of the credit recovery lab at the high school. The lab is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and students do their remedial work on computers, working at their own pace. A number of students have picked up credits they needed to graduate.

"It's been a great year," said Gulley, who just completed his first year as JCHS principal. "Sometimes we lose track of how good a year we've had as a corporation."

Monday's meeting was the first for the board in the former Portland armory, which is the new administrative office building.

"We're still moving people over from the central office," said Long. "It's going to be very functional."

Long said work is progressing on the auxiliary gym/multipurpose building at the high school and added that steel is expected to be delivered in late July. Tennis courts at the high school are also being re-paved, and new heating and cooling units have been delivered for Bloomfield Elementary School.

The board unanimously approved submitting a Title I grant application prepared by Pennville Elementary School principal Larry Wilson seeking more than $958,000 in federal funding for remediation programs for all of the county's elementary schools.

In other business, the board:

•Learned that Long has been selected for an exchange program by the China Exchange Institute. The program is expected to bring a Chinese school administrator to Jay County in the fall, and Long will go to China for two weeks in the spring of 2009. The cost of the program is $1,500, with most of the cost being covered by the Freeman Foundation.

•Approved a contract with Indiana Testing Inc. for the random drug and alcohol testing program.

•Approved through second reading a number of board policies that had been reviewed by the board and school corporation attorney Phil Frantz to bring those policies in line with current law.

•Hired Alison Jackson as a special education teacher at East Jay, Lisa Wood as a half-time biomedical teacher at JCHS, Julie Grant as a half-time teacher at West Jay and JCHS, Erica Kelly as a math teacher at JCHS, Brittany Bridges as a vocational agriculture teacher at JCHS, Edward Paxson as a vocational agriculture mechanics teacher at JCHS, Craig Campbell as an interim administrative assistant at East Jay, Pam Tarr as a credit recovery instructional assistant for the summer at JCHS, Rene Haines as a science teacher at JCHS, Amanda Brandon as an English teacher for summer school at East Jay, and Tracy Christman as a fourth grade teacher at Westlawn.

•Accepted the resignations of Judith Massie as a special education assistant at Redkey Elementary School, Felicia McConnell as an English teacher at East Jay, Dwight Michael as a summer school English teacher at East Jay, Jenny Peterson as an instructional assistant at General Shanks Elementary School, Jodi Overmyer as a bus aide, Jared Nussbaum as a vocational agriculture mechanics teacher at JCHS, Michael Ford as a bus driver, Kelley Fraze as a special education teacher at Redkey, Karen Nichols as an after-school tutor, David Wall as an industrial technology teacher at JCHS, Sean MConnell as assistant principal/dean at JCHS, and Anna Leis as a vocational agriculture teacher at JCHS.

•Granted a leave of absence to East Jay assistant principal Robert Phelps.

•Approved Eric Hemmelgarn as boys' basketball coach at East Elementary School, Kristen Westgerdes as Just Say No sponsor at General Shanks, Joni Penrod as assistant cheer coach at JCHS, and Denise Rogers as yearbook sponsor at Redkey.

•Accepted the extracurricular assignment resignation of Andrea Oswalt as assistant cheer coach at JCHS.

•Approved field trips by the football team to Bowling Green University, the FFA to Purdue University, and the Marching Patriots to Kings Island.

•Approved bus requests from the summer swim team and the Portland High School class of 1953.[[In-content Ad]]Jay County High School has a new assistant principal/dean of students.

Chad A. Dodd, who has most recently been teaching at Hartford City Middle School, received unanimous approval from the Jay School Board Monday night.

"We had a tremendous response (to advertising the position) and Chad rose to the top," said superintendent Tim Long.

Dodd succeeds Sean McConnell, who has been hired as principal at Adams Central High School.

In addition to his teaching experience, Dodd has coached baseball at Blackford High School and was park superintendent for Hartford City for eight years.

A 1994 graduate of Blackford High School, he received his bachelor's degree in elementary education from Indiana Wesleyan University in 1999 and completed work on his master's in educational administration and supervision at Ball State this spring.

He has taught sixth grade English and social studies at Hartford City Middle School since 1999.