Plans for 2024-25 laid out

Registration for school is just a few weeks away.

Jay School Board on Monday received an update on plans for the 2024-25 school year at its meeting Monday.

Online registration for school will open Monday, July 8. In-person registration will be held Monday, July 22, with transportation requests closing the same day.

Class rosters and bus assignments will be released to parents at noon Thursday, Aug. 1. The first day of school for students will follow a week later on Thursday, Aug. 8.

The calendar for the 2024 school year includes fall break Oct. 16 through 18, winter break Dec. 23 through Jan. 3 and spring break March 21 through 28.

During Monday’s meeting, board members Ron Laux, Phil Ford, Jason Phillips, Vickie Reitz, Marcie Vormohr and Chip Phillips, absent Donna Geesaman, approved the school corporation’s calendar for planned two-hour delays for the purpose of professional development. Those delays are set for Wednesdays Sept. 4, Nov. 6, Feb. 5 and April 2.

Also related to the 2024-25 school year, the board approved school meal rates for students at $3.15 for elementary school lunch and $3.40 for junior-senior high lunch.

The board also OK’d a $1 per hour increase for Latchkey care. Registration fees will stay the same at $20 for the first child in a family and $10 for each additional child.

The driver’s education fee was set at $400.

Business manager Shannon Current also reviewed the process for the 2025 budget with the board. She said she plans to seek permission to advertise the 2025 budget at the board’s Aug. 5 meeting, with the public hearing on the budget to follow during its regular Aug. 19 meeting. She plans to seek budget approval at the board’s regular Sept. 16 meeting.

In other business, the board:

*Approved the following: The hiring of new teachers including Bailee Tebbe (East Jay third grade), Jeani Shrack (special education resource), Jenna Winger (junior high business), Lauren Day (high school business), Michael Bracken (high school science) and Jared Owens (junior high social studies); the retirement of East Elementary heath clerk Cindy Hudson; a leave of absence for high school math teacher Erika Hess; various extracurricular assignments, including Doug Arbuckle as softball coach; a school resource officer agreement with Jay County with no significant changes; an adjunct teacher agreement for junior high art teacher Kim Anderson; contracts with Abigail Muhlenkamp and Katie Southworth for occupational therapy services; a vehicle request from Jay County Commissioners to pick up donations of furniture and supplies; policy changes in a variety of areas including meetings, extracurricular activities and bullying; increasing the driver’s education rate to $400; writing off $50,276.19 in food service lunch debt owed by parents; and Jennifer Snow as a reading coach for Bloomfield, Redkey and West Jay elementary schools.

•OK’d a memorandum of understanding with the county for a school health liaison from Jay County Health Department. (The position is being added via additional funding made available to health departments from the state legislature.) The liaison’s duties include partnering “with schools and community partners to promote whole child health, including physical, mental and student health and wellbeing and implement wellness policies, including a comprehensive strategy to address substance use in schools.”

•Accepted the resignations of staff members including Gina Brockman (junior high math) and Amber Miller (east Jay third grade).

•Terminated the employment of resource instructional assistant Susan VanMatre.

•Accepted a $500 donation from Dunkirk Lions Club to the school lunch program at West Jay Elementary.