Wednesday blackouts almost final

A Wednesday night blackout of school activities to allow for family and church events is one step closer to becoming a reality.
Jay School Board members hope to adopt administrative guidelines on Wednesday nights as a matter of policy early in 2011.
“We’re in the process of not doing anything on Wednesday nights at all,” Jay County High School principal Phil Ford told the board.
The proposed guidelines would have school activities wrapped up by 6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, though the superintendent would be able to waive that requirement if, for example, days lost due to snow complicate the calendar. There would also be exceptions for JCHS Spirit Night and IHSAA required athletic events.
“We’ll shoot for 6:30 and shoot for all year long,” said superintendent Tim Long. “We’ll bring it back … for first reading. I want that done.”
The concept of a Wednesday night blackout of school activities has been championed by Greg Wellman since he was first elected to the board.
Meanwhile Monday, two board members — president Bryan Alexander and secretary Jay Halstead — saw their terms end and were honored by their colleagues for their service.
“It’s been a pleasure to serve on this board,” said Alexander. “I think we’ve done a lot of good stuff. We didn’t always agree on everything.”
“There’s been great days and there’s been tough days,” said Halstead. “It’s been an honor to serve.”
One more board meeting may still be on the horizon for the two, however.
A special meeting has been tentatively set for 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 22, if the school corporation’s negotiations team is able to reach a new contract agreement with the Jay Classroom Teachers Association.
Long told board members that significant progress has been made on student immunizations. “We’re down to just the very few students that need to be immunized,” he said, estimating the number at fewer than 20. “We’re going to be looking at that over the course of the next week. The county health department — they’ve been great.”
Long also presented the board with a draft of a school calendar for the 2011-2012 year, which will be finalized by the board next month.
The draft version of the calendar calls for the first day for students on Aug. 15, fall break on Oct. 27 and 28, Christmas vacation Dec. 22 to 30, spring break March 26 to 30, and the last day for students on May 21.
The board unanimously accepted a donation of $6,800 from Verallia, the Saint-Gobain Containers division in Dunkirk. Half will go to West Jay Middle School and half to Jay County High School.
The board was also unanimous in authorizing business manager Brad DeRome to advertise for bids on two pick-up trucks with utility box beds and a dump truck. The vehicles would replace two 1998 cargo vans and a 1997 dump truck. “I did build those replacement cycles into our budget,” he said.
DeRome also reported the Department of Local Government Finance has approved the 2011 Jay Schools budget at a total of $34,883,675. That’s down slightly from the 2010 budget. The tax rate for schools is expected to fall from $1.22 per $100 of assessed valuation to $1.17.
He added that 98.4 percent of all local property taxes had been collected. “The county got their bills out, and people paid relatively on time,” said DeRome.
In other business, the board:
•Gave unanimous approval to a number of changes in policies to bring them into compliance with state and federal laws.
•Approved the retirement of Judy Toms Medler as central office secretary. An open house in her honor will be held at the central office from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday.
•Terminated the extracurricular assignment of Ryan Rogers as seventh grade boys’ basketball coach at East Jay Middle School.
•Accepted the resignation of bus driver Mitch Corwin.
•Approved leaves of absence for fifth grade teacher Carrie Byrum, third grade teacher Tisha Walker, and second grade teacher Donna Haffner.
•Approved extracurricular assignments for Tara Wellman as a JCHS choir volunteer, Kyle Sibray as volunteer boys’ swimming coach, Eric Butcher as seventh grade basketball coach at East Jay, and Timothy Fennig as volunteer assistant wrestling coach at East Jay.
•Approved a bus use request by the Jay Community Center.[[In-content Ad]]