BOARD … A full house in the Pettisville office conference room to discuss many back to school items. (BY LINDSAY PHILLIPS, STAFF)
By: Lindsay Phillips
Pettisville Board of Education began their meeting on August 8th at 8:00 p.m. in the conference room. Following a roll call, the meeting started with a prayer.
Minutes from the July meeting were approved, along with financial reports and payment of bills.
Multiple personnel items were approved, beginning with a new as needed Athletic Fields Groundskeeper role that will be filled by Gabe Jaramillo. Pettisville staff will serve as mentors, as a part of a four-year program for the new teachers.
Support staff substitutes were accepted for the upcoming school year including adding Dan Bruner as a long-term substitute. Patricia Hyland will be providing school psychology services along side Matt Shoemaker.
Also approved on the consent agenda were bus routes, the school’s transportation handbook, and April Beck as the summer volleyball clinic coach.
After the consent agenda was accepted, a vote for Scott Rupp to serve as a delegate and President Brent Hoylman as an alternate delegate at the Ohio School Board Association Capital Conference.
Following Treasurer Chris Lee’s report, Elementary Principal Jason Waldvogel started off his report and shared, “It’s a busy time, not a ton of stuff to talk about right now, it’s been good, and the teacher have been in and working hard.”
Pettisville Elementary will be using a new math curriculum this year. Kindergarten through third grade will use Bridges Math, fourth through sixth grade will be using enVisions.
Moving through the reports, JH/High School Principal Adam Wagner shared, “Sydney Audet has been in doing a great job so far working primarily scheduling trying to get that all figured out.”
“She has done a nice job reaching out to other school counselors and asking questions.” Wagner went on to add, “Joe Delpha in the art room, I’ve seen him in here countless hours, ordering supplies setting up his classroom seeing what he already has. He’s already ordered some digital cameras that the students can utilize in the new lab as well.”
Pettisville golf and volleyball have started their seasons, with other sports starting back up toward the end of August.
Student Service Coordinator, Jamie Fox, kicked off her report and stated, “This past Wednesday all the teachers came in and we had a staff training day.”
Fox went on to add, “All of them had really good things to report and are ready to go. We are going to do additional training in October, were gonna give them the opportunity to get into it and get their feet wet.”
Fox also shared, “This week we had the opportunity to send four teachers to Orton-Gillingham training. I’m sure you guys have been hearing a lot about the Dyslexia Initiative that’s coming to the state of Ohio, we had been prior to this kind of making the switch in our Phonics Instruction to a Structured Literacy type of approach.
This training goes hand in hand with this. This will help not only our struggling readers but all our readers.” Fox thanked the four teachers that took the time to go to the training.
Technology Director, Mike Zimmerman shared Janae Lammers, Technology Assistant, is getting the chromebooks ready for the students.
Zimmerman also shared that the school has revamped their printer structure, making it so the teachers no longer have printers on their desks, but have more of a decentralized printing structure with some virtual print cues in hopes to cut down on toner costs.”
Mr. Zimmerman also thanked the office staff for doing a great job making sure the machines are running and being frugal with the process.
Zimmerman announced their computer lab project is nearing completion and is just waiting on some chairs, door hardware, and electrical. Superintendent Josh Clark added, “It’s going to be great for our kids.”
Athletic Director Brian Leppelmeier stated that sports have started to kick off. Leppelmeier stated, “We’re about 130 student athletes for grades seventh through twelve, I think our number right now Is 239 so that puts us over fifty percent participation without students.”
Superintendent Clark addressed school safety in his report. Clark shared, “Every once in a while, the bell gets rung when a school shooting happens, whether that’s Columbine or Parkland or a certain school around here.”
“This time around it felt a little different, I think it got a lot of people’s attention around the nation. It got our governors attention and it’s got our attention.”
Clark went on to add, “There’s going to be an emphasis here on school safety and making sure that were prepared for any circumstance.”
“So, one of those things is line of sight.” Pettisville has started the process of measuring, ordering, and putting tint on the windows, so those inside can see out, but those outside cannot see in.
Another action toward safety the school is taking is building a job description for a School Resource Officer. The job will be posted through the sherriff’s office in conjunction with the school.
Clark emphasized this process will take longer than a week, as they want the perfect person for the job and their students.
With no other business on the agenda, the meeting was adjourned at 8:37 p.m.
Lindsay can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com
