The USD 480 Board of Education met Monday night and the jury is no longer out on the Vice-Presidency as the board voted to elect Dr. Jim Jury to become the new Vice-President by a vote of 4-3. Jury defeated incumbent VP Cheryl Louderback who held the spot for two years. The move came as a bit of surprise as Jury wasn’t one of the three who was nominated two weeks ago when the board eventually had to table the Vice-Presidency.
The most discussed item of the meeting was when Kevin Greishar of the DLR group came to discuss the possibility of looking into pursuing another bond issue. Board member Nick Hatcher voiced his opinion strongly that he feels that there are a lot of needs that must be addressed and that as a board member he does not want to fail our children.
President Dan Diepenbrock asked each board member to give their opinion on the possibility of exploring another bond. All were strongly in favor except Cheryl Louderback and Reid Petty who were a bit tentative about it. Louderback stated that she felt that the people already spoke, but that there are needs in the district. She suggested having members of the community visit the schools to see the needs. Petty said he also understands that there are needs and that he is not against exploring into the possibility of another bond, but that he couldn’t give a commitment to supporting one at this time.
Hatcher then asked Petty if he would be willing to be on a committee with the DLR to at least explore and Petty said he would be willing, but stressed that he would not commit to actually being in favor of putting a bond on the ballot unless the community for sure backed it. He added that many teachers weren’t even on board on the last bond and that if another would be explored that every single teacher needs to get a say. Petty also said re-storing good faith with the people is also very important right now and that a lot of people are still very upset after the board voted for a $14,000 survey and then went forward with the football field project before the results of the survey even came in.
Diepenbrock responded to Petty by saying that this isn’t a commitment to supporting another bond, but that this is just a commitment to being on a committee that is willing to find out the real needs of the district are and to communicate with the public. Hatcher added that he felt that either Petty or Louderback should be apart of this since they were opposed to the first bond and that they could bring another perspective to the table. Petty agreed.
After more discussion the board voted 7-0 for Tammy Sutherland-Abbott, Diepenbrock, and Petty to be a committee that will work with the DLR to go out and talk with the community about what its wants and needs are and rather or not another bond idea would be a good idea or not.
In other action items the board also accepted the Negotiated Agreement 09-10 Action, certified employees, and classified employment, transfers, and resignations by a vote of 7-0.
The board held a budget workshop before the meeting giving Business Director Jerry Clay the go ahead to publish the budget in the newspaper. The budget won’t become official and can be changed before it is officially adopted in August. The board will next meet on Monday, August 10.