In its last meeting of the school year, the Watonga School Board accepted resignations and approved new hires.
Those resigning were Jacque Till, longtime high school office assistant, Grant Williams, the wrestling coach who has been scooped up by Blackwell schools as an assistant coach, Kyla Vaverka, a teacher’s aide, Deana Mauck who was a librarian and Todd Overstreet, the high school principal who has been tapped to serve as superintendent at Newkirk.
In turn, the board has temporarily hired Andrea Lauminick as a family and consumer sciences teacher, Kristin Welton as a third grade teacher and Corey Duncan to teach computer applications and coach wrestling. Also hired were Sondra Bunch as the high school administrative assistant, Savannah Schroerlucke and Brenda Carter as elementary aides.
In other business the board learned a lift station had to be added to the new construction ongoing at the high school, but that the funds were readily available through the contingency placed with Joe D. Hall Construction to cover such items that become necessary as construction progresses.
The high school will get new tiles as soon as school is out as part of the recovery from flooding in the building. A second claims adjuster will visit the building soon to determine whether the roof damage claim is within reason and the construction of a cafeteria at the elementary school is expected to be completed by fall break.
Once that construction at the elementary is done, the focus will move to the interior of the existing building, where floors, wall tiles and ceilings/lighting will be upgraded similar to the middle school facelift of a year or so back.
Once that construction at the elementary is done, the focus will move to the interior of the existing building, where floors, wall tiles and ceilings/lighting will be upgraded similar to the middle school facelift of a year or so back. When it came to finances, Superintendent Kyle Hitlerbran told the board the gross production tax revenue for April had not posted yet, as it wasn’t May 10 yet. However, the March GPT was $399,894. When creating its budget for the year, the district had assumed $170,000 monthly gross production income, but every month had exceeded that significantly. “We are right where we need to be on our projections,” he said. “Our carryover is right there.”