Commons project awarded

Renovations are coming to the commons.

Jay School Board on Monday awarded the contract for improvements to the commons area at Jay County Junior/Senior High School to C&T Design and Equipment of Fort Wayne at a cost of $738,015.12.

The board also held its public hearing on the budget and heard a back-to-school update from superintendent Jeremy Gulley.

Improvements to the commons area have been discussed since late last year, with the board giving Gulley permission to solicit bids for the project in May. The upgrades include a new design with a focus on a more collegiate/retail look. It will include more variety in types of seating, including booths and bar-height tables of various shapes and individual seating. Some will also have “power reload units” to allow students and visitors to charge devices. Serving and trash units are also incorporated into the design.

The various furnishings, which will mostly be on wheels and all be movable, are designed in school colors red and blue as well as neutral shades of gray, brown and white.

Most of the money — $701,888.38 — for the project will come from the corporation’s food service fund, which must be used for improvements in food service areas.

“I don’t believe we would have the funds to do this had it not been for our partnership with Chartwells,” said Gulley.

“We’re just very excited to see it come to final fruition and have the kids enjoy it,” said Siobhan Carey, who now oversees all of Indiana for the Chartwells. (She also introduced Nick Koenig, her replacement as area director for the company, at the meeting.)

The work is planned to be completed over Jay Schools’ winter break.

The board also held its public hearing on the school corporation’s 2024 budget, which is proposed at 40.7 million. It includes $21.9 million in the education fund and $11 million in the operations fund. Those numbers are up from $20.1 million and $10.3 million, respectively, this year. Also included in the budget are the debt service fund ($5.85 million), the rainy day fund ($1 million) and the pension debt service fund ($893,902). 

There were no comments from the public on the budget during Monday’s meeting.

The board is scheduled to vote on budget adoption Sept. 18.

Also Monday, Gulley provided the board with an update on the start of the school year, which began Aug. 10. He said it was a good start to the school year, though there were some challenges.

One such challenge, he noted, is the teacher shortage.

“I think this notion of a teacher shortage is a real thing,” he said, noting that he is seeing fewer applications for open positions than in previous years. “It’s tight. … It’s not just us. I’m hearing it from a lot of places.”

He also shared the results of a back-to-school parent survey, with 84% of respondents rating their overall opinion of the first day a 4 or a 5 on a five-point scale.

Gulley also noted that school was closed Monday because of fog. With that cancellation, the school corporation will use the first of its two built-in makeup days on Jan. 15. The next closure will be covered by the second built-in makeup day, with the corporation to use e-learning for the next three cancellations after that.

In other business, the board:

•During the Patriot pride moment, honored the high school marching band and cheerleaders for their efforts at the Indiana State Fair competitions earlier this month. The Marching Patriots placed third out of 37 bands Aug. 4 and the cheerleaders were second in their division of four squads in their competition the next day.

•Approved the following: Policy updates in a variety of areas including staff-student relations, tobacco use prevention and bullying; the corporation’s teacher appreciation grant policy; a series of hirings including Cherie Walter as high school English teacher, Joel Bowers as a junior high social studies teacher, Michael Schlechty as a seventh grade physical education and health teacher and Maggie Pryor as a physical education teacher and technology instructor at Redkey and Westlawn elementary schools; leaves of absence for Bloomfield Elementary language teacher Julie Kable and East Elementary kindergarten teacher Kristy Blalock; a contract with One Hundred Percent Career Coaching; awarding a $106,900 contract with McGuff Roofing for replacement of a section of the roof at East Jay Elementary School; the purchase of high school science textbooks from McGraw Hill and junior/senior high health textbooks from Goodheart-Willcox; and the school corporation’s updated RISE teacher evaluation plan.

•Accepted the resignations of seventh grade physical education and health teacher Brian Carr and instructional assistant Sharon Reffitt.