As soon as the opening ceremonies were complete at the Monday Watonga School Board meeting, Andy Wigington was sworn in for his second term on the board. Little was changed in the way of officers, with Aaron Clewell remaining as president, Dr. Dwight McGee as vice president and Mayra Flynn as clerk.
When it was time for the principals to report on their buildings, middle school headmaster Ty Hussey announced that five of his students had qualified for the state competition in Super Smash Brothers, an Esports classification. That means they were in the top 125 performers in the event in Oklahoma. Hussey said the Esports program has offered enrichment to some students who were previously ineligible for extra curricular activities because their grades lagged. However, offered the chance to shine and compete in Esport, the same students brought their grades up enough to become eligible and remain that way.
Hussey also outlined his eighth grades’ recent trip to SWOSU where they toured the campus. The sixth grade will tour Chisolm Trail Career Tech next week. The students are also getting prepared for end of the year testing.
“Our teachers are doing a great job,” Hussey said. “We can see our kids’ growth.”
“You are doing all the right things,” said Superintendent Kyle Hilterbran. “Discipline is better than even last year.”
Over at the high school, principal Todd Overstreet noted there had been more than 600 visitors for STEM night. “Everybody came for the Chick-Fil-A, but then they stayed,” Overstreet crowed. Students at the high school are preparing for testing as well, with the junior class having already completed the ACT assessment, with history and science testing coming up next week. The agriculture classes are competing in parliamentary procedure, welding and speech contests, while the band went to state competition and came home with multiple 2s.
Overstreet and Hilterbran laid those successes squarely at the feet of the board, who had asked for growth in those programs. To do so, the superintendent added a half-time teacher or assistant to each program, and the improvements were beginning to show.
“The high school is really on point,” Hilterbran said. “We are concentrated on learning.”
The bond projects are moving along rapidly as well. The walls are going up at the elementary cafeteria, and the footers at the new high school gym site have been put in. The board will soon begin selecting seat colors for the gym and view paint chips for the walls. Additionally, the gross production tax, a major revenue source for the district, had come in for the month previous at $399,894 versus a budgeted expectation of $170,000.
“We’re in good shape,” Hilterbran said. “We’re in a good place.”