Board gives OK to SRO update

Council has approved.

Jay School Board has approved.

The agreement now goes to Jay County Commissioners.

The school board on Monday handled its portion of approving an updated memorandum of understanding with the county for a school resource officer.

The agreement between the county and the school corporation is mostly unchanged from the original memorandum the parties reached two years ago. The officer is contracted through Jay County Sheriff’s Office, with the school corporation paying for the employee for the time he spends working for the schools. (When school is not in session, the deputy works for the sheriff’s office.)

The only significant change to the contract is the addition of a “therapy dog” — a black labrador named Jack. The dog is currently being trained and will “provide therapy opportunities for students and staff, detect the presence of firearms on Jay Schools’ property and locate missing and endangered students.” Superintendent Jeremy Gulley said he expects the Jack to begin work in the schools in the spring.

At the request of board member Chris Snow, board attorney Josh Atkinson clarified that Jay Schools has agreed to assume all liability in regard to having the dog on campus.

Board members Phil Ford, Ron Laux, Mike Shannon, Donna Geesaman, Jason Phillips and Snow, absent Vickie Reitz, approved the memorandum of understanding. Jay County Commissioners are expected to vote on the memorandum at their meeting Monday.

The board also held its public hearing for Jay School Corporation’s 2022 budget, with no members of the public choosing to comment.

The $35.5 million budget, which is down about 2.5% from the current year, includes $19.73 million in the education fund (down from $20.5 million this year), $9.54 million in the operation fund (down from $9.9 million this year), $5.3 million in the debt service fund and $893,000 in the pension debt service fund. The board plans to vote on budget adoption at a meeting Oct. 18.

In other business, the board:

•Honored students, staff and others involved in last week’s homecoming activities during the Patriot Pride moment. The board also congratulated math teacher Zach Keller, one of the student council advisors, for being selected as one of Huntington University’s Young Alumnus of the Year Award winners.

•Approved the following: Hiring physical education instruction Jared Weesner and art teacher Heather Keller (both for East and Bloomfield elementary schools); a leave of absence for high school English teacher Megan Byard; continued participation in a fuel budgeting program through which the corporation can receive reimbursement if the cost of fuel exceeds a pre-set cap (the corporation has received about $17,000 this year); a contract with Anointed Hands for sign language interpreter services; and two FFA field trips.

•Heard a question from Oakland Gaerke about how the school corporation is spending COVID-19 relief funds, if that information was public and if it could be presented at the next board meeting. The board’s plan was publicly proposed and discussed at its April meeting and then approved at its May meeting, with those details then reported by local media. The funding, a total of about $9.1 million, was used for reimbursement of teacher salaries, recouping various funds impacted by the pandemic, educational software, the addition of several teaching employees, summer school and tutoring expansion, transportation software, interactive classroom panels and a variety of other items.

•Heard various complaints from Ryan Blalock on topics including masks, art teachers, physical education teachers, a lack of separation of junior high and high school students at the junior-senior high school, shared classrooms and wasted money. He suggested that all but one school board member resign.

•Was presented with a proposed updated wellness policy, which includes minor changes regarding utilizing the Nutrislice application for nutritional information, meeting the United States Department of Agriculture’s Smart Snacks in School nutrition standards and clarifying the vending machines are not available for use by students during the school day.

•Accepted the resignations of East and Bloomfield elementary school physical education teacher Dawn Alicea, East Jay Elementary special education teacher Jan McGalliard, West Jay Elementary instructional assistant Jill Larrow and bus driver Roberto Aparicio.

•Learned business manager Shannon Current is projected a $653,000 budget surplus this year for a year-end cash balance of about $4.46 million.