By Charla Wurm-Adams
cwurm@wbcowqel.com
The agenda at Monday’s Colonel Crawford Board of Education meeting ranged from gas wells, to school construction to a new board member.
Mike Tinkey returned to the board as its appointment to fill Mike Willacker’s seat. Willacker resigned at the last board meeting.
Tinkey said, “I’m just very excited to be back, helping out the community and looking forward to working with great members on the Board and great administration.”
Superintendent Todd Martin said an old natural gas well was discovered when the Sulphur Springs building was torn down and now needs capped.
“So, we are making sure that is part of the project and the capping of it because right now we have methane and hydrogen sulfide, it’s an odor, a strong sulfur horrible odor coming out of that, we want to get it filled in ASAP,” Martin said. “So, we’ve got to do this to hire the company through ODNR. They are closely monitoring it to make sure we do it right and we get it capped and filled.”
The well was discovered and damaged when contractor Russ James tore the building down last fall. Martin said the well was not on any plans for the school and unknown to current school officials. They later found out the well had been developed in the 1920s when the school was built and used to heat the school kitchen and at one time for Bunsen burners.
Board members approved keeping Regency Construction Services on as the owner/agent for its construction project for a new high school wing.
“The motion tonight basically was hiring Regency, they’ve been our owner/agent to this point,” Martin said. “Well, a lot of times the owner/agent, once you hire the contractor, will step away from the project. Well, the OFCC said we’re so far under budget, they would like to keep the owner/agent on. They’re going to fund it to be an extra set of eyes on the project all the way through to help with the accounting, monitoring the scheduling, working with Studer-Obringer and with the abatement. So it’s a no brainer for us, we are going to bring them on.”
The Hannah and William Crawford School Spelling Bee winners and participants were recognized at the meeting. The winners are: Grades 6 through 8, Macie Dicus, Alana Burkhart, Trinity Gatten, and Elizabeth Adams; Grades 4 and 5, Cameron Hipsher, Logan Garrett, Ashlyn Bond, and Sydney Sullivan.
Those students received a plaque or a medal as well as getting their name on the plaque hanging in the hallway in the Hannah Crawford School Building.
Finally, the board approved the revised OTES language to evaluate the teachers biennially and do this without hiring new administrators for that purpose.