Staff writer
USD 398 Board of Education member William Spangler resigned from his position at the meeting Monday.
The board unanimously moved to advertise for a replacement immediately. Spangler’s term as the district 6 representative, Burns, for the board runs out with the June 30, 2013 election.
Board president Terry Eberhard did not give a reason for Spangler’s resignation and Spangler could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Superintendent search
The board voted to use the Kansas Association of School Boards to search for a permanent superintendent. The service will cost the board $3,500 plus expenses.
“We post vacancies on our website. We get 1,000 hits a week,” KASB representative Mike Pomarico said.
The process includes KASB trimming 1,000 applications into three to five candidates for the board to interview. The interview would last all day with the candidate meeting with school employees and committees before the board in the evening.
The board was given three service agency options for the search, including McPherson and Jacobson and Southwest Plains Regional Service Center, but both options were more expensive and the USD 398 board is already a member of KASB.
In a public forum, Diane Nichols asked the council to consider promoting a principal to the superintendent’s position and for that person to hold both jobs. However, no one employed by the district has Central Office Certification. Starting with a master’s degree, interim superintendent Demitry Evancho said it would take a potential candidate at least a year to earn the certificate.
Evancho, in his fifth interim superintendent term, recommended KASB. His successors at several schools, all selected through KASB, were still with those districts.
In other business:
- The board accepted a gift of six iPads, three for the high school and elementary school, totaling $3,352. Randy Zahn, whose tenure with the district is ending with USD 398 moving off improvement, offered the gift.
- The board accepted Panther Pals mini grants worth $660 and $590 that go toward teaching nutrition at Peabody-Burns Elementary School, grades kindergarten through fifth, and $225 to the Peabody-Burns High School.
- The board approved changing meeting times back to 7 p.m. on the second Monday of every month.
- Evancho took the board through the November finances approved in the consent agenda. The district has used about two thirds of its budget. Evancho was concerned that the district was spending at a faster pace than in 2010-11 school year.
The next meeting will be 6:30 p.m. Jan. 9.