By Jordan Studer
news@wbcowqel.com
Attendance was high at the Crestline Board of Education meeting to see what the school district had in the works.
Six new staff members were approved for hiring for the 2017-2018 school year during the meeting. Vincent Sansaline was hired as the 7-12 health and physical education teacher. Debra Armstrong was hired as a second grade teacher. Brandy Cottrill-Cox was hired on as a third grade teacher. Kyle Strauch was hired as the new Bulldog Academy teacher. Melinda Hartzler was hired as the elementary literacy coach. Matthew Wade was also hired as the new athletics director.
Previously, Wade worked eight years at Madison High School serving as a special education teacher. For the last seven years, Wade was the head swim coach at Madison running the program year-round. Wade says he is very excited to be taking on a new role of athletics director at Crestline.
When the board approved of hiring Hartzler as the elementary literacy coach, Superintendent Noreen Mullens explained that the literacy program is a state program and only 12 districts in the state were selected to do the program.
“We were nominated to be selected through the State Support Team Region 7, which is in Mansfield. We were selected because of our high poverty. That means high need for reading because poverty and reading go hand in hand. Now we are hiring our literacy coach. And all of the teachers, preschool through third grade are going to be learning the letters system,” Mullens explained.
Keith Strickler, high school principal, recognized Cassie Taylor as newly named co-valedictorian. Taylor is a recent graduate of Crestline and Pioneer Career and Technical Center. Strickler explained that at the time of Crestline graduation, all of the grades sent from Pioneer were accounted for and Taylor was named salutatorian. However, this past week Pioneer realized they made a mistake.
“They amended some grades from the second quarter. What we found when we did the math on this, we have a co-valedictorian. Cassie was not the salutatorian …the grades did change about two weeks after our graduation. We were done early, Pioneer is closing stuff out, they realized they made a mistake,” Strickler explained.
Strickler then called Taylor up front to award her with her official valedictorian medal and congratulate her on her accomplishments.
“We want to give Cassie some public recognition for her amazing accomplishments. Her grade point average was over 4.0. Absolutely amazing student that we are so proud of,” Strickler said.
Crestline High School FCCLA director Chris Bruce, along with two of her FCCLA members also spoke at the meeting. They wanted to express their gratitude to the community on helping them raise all $9,500 they needed in order to take members tot the National Leadership Conference.
“Tonight the ladies are just going to let you know what a fantastic community and supportive community we have,” Bruce explained.
Donations received totaled over $4,790. Along with the donations, Pioneer Career and Technology Center paid to aid the CHS FCCLA, and the CHS FCCLA was also able to raise money themselves. With all of that accounted for, the expenses are now paid for, and the CHS FCCLA expresses much gratitude to all those who helped them.
A few technology teachers also presented their next steps in implementing giving students in fifth through twelfth grade Chrome Books. This year they will be purchasing more Chrome Books and hope to see the implementation go smoothly.
The board also accepted the retirement of two Crestline secretaries, Sharen Alt and Donna Stumpf. A supplemental contract was also approved for the 2017-2018 school year for Jeff Teeple, as the bowling coach.
Extended contracts were also approved for the elementary secretary and the pre-school transportation secretary. Those contracts were extended by five days each, to make them a 210-day contract each year. Lastly, a beginning step to put a tax levy on the November ballot with the approval of a resolution for the renewal of the emergency tax levy.