When the Watonga School Board met Monday in regular session, it wasn’t the typical end of the year wrap-up.
In addition to renewing curriculum contracts, adapting new systems and rewarding students for their hard work, there was the matter of staff resignations to deal with.
One of those was something of a shocker, as track and cross country coach Jim Bob Coleman offered his resignation. Coleman is going out at the top, having two state championships in the person of Brayden Cowan back-to-back.
However, although Coleman is pursuing other opportunities outside education, Superintendent Kyle Hilterbran indicated the coach will remain involved with the runners.
The board also agreed to hire Chase McCurley as head softball coach and Easton Batt as a middle school teacher and coach.
The board also heard from the superintendent that much of the work on the buildings is completed, including the roof replacements paid for with insurance settlements from storm damage in June a year ago and the conversion of the old elementary cafeteria into a STEM lab. That lab is waiting now for furniture as some of the items that had been ordered arrived and were not correct. Those items have been returned and hopes are the appropriate items will be shipped in time for the new school year. Hilterbran did note the lab came in under budget though.
Some of the district’s teachers will be traveling to Denver this summer to train on incorporating the STEM lab into their regular lesson plan. In addition to learning uses of the new lab, they will build curriculum for themselves or integrate and adapt the curriculum other schools have found successful into their own teaching plan.
The other bond funded construction projects are moving ahead as well. The parking lot at the high school is scheduled to be completed before school starts and the gym is expected to be completed in November. Much of the work on the gym will be indoors now, so it may seem there is little going on.
This year again the school district will hold a summer food program where anyone under the age of 18 can get free breakfast and lunch during the week. That program will be administered out of the new elementary cafeteria for all age levels.
For the first time in many years, there has been a spring football program, which will segue into summer pride in early June. As student athletes are arriving at the breakfast site, they will be able to utilize a smoothie bar and may add their own protein powder or other healthy additives to their grab-and-go morning meal before practice.
The board also heard from history teacher Michelle Hilterbran who was asking to take students to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Dallas next school year. The students would also visit the sixth floor museum of the Dallas School Book Depository in which alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald waited to shoot President John F. Kennedy.
“I appreciate the opportunities the students get to experience their lessons in a larger space,” she told the board. Her class made the trip in 2022. Field trips to museums, she indicated, fueled the student’s interest in the impact real events, such as the 1921 Tulsa riots that destroyed 30 blocks of Greenwood and killed unknown numbers of residents, have on their own lives and experiences.
“I also love this opportunity for our kids,” said board member and parent Aaron Clewell.