St. Marys board seeks input on new stadium

ST. MARYS - School board members are looking for public input on where residents would want a potential new football stadium.

Board president Brian Little at Wednesday night's board meeting, said public meetings will begin in May to solicit opinions.

"I think it is important to note that I don't think there is a board member on here that has a solid decision on where they want the stadium," superintendent Shawn Brown said this morning.

"We want to do what the public wants to do as far as putting a stadium up," Brown said.

The first meeting would be to educate the public about the pros and cons of placing a stadium either near Memorial High School or at the site of the current Skip Baughman Stadium.

Brown said no further timetable for a stadium decision has been set. Deciding the location of a new football stadium is too important to residents for board members to make without community involvement, Little added.

Board members also formed a special committee to examine the effects of the Partnership for Assessment for Readiness for College and Careers testing and Ohio's new safe harbor law.

Creation of the committee stemmed from comments by St. Marys Middle School Principal Mary Miller, who shared concerns over the amount of testing and the effects it had on the school's students and daily operations. She recounted the school's recent PARCC testing experience to the board.

Miller said testing's biggest complications were handling the few students who had opted out of the testing and making sure attendance on testing days was as high as possible to reduce the need for make-up sessions.

The committee will include board members Travis Kuenning and Ronda Shelby, who suggested April Braun of the St. Marys Education Association be included. Other board members and administrators may be added later.

Ohio House Bill 7 protects students from being affected by their test results for one year. It also protects funding for districts regardless of PARCC testing results, board member Bob Valentine said.

"The school districts do have a powerful voice if they use it in combination with one another," he said.

The board also approved an agreement with Cincinnati Bell Telephone Service for district buildings. New phones and full service should be ready sometime later this year.

The system will feature a 911 alerting system that automatically notifies the superintendent and principals of any emergency call made within the district, technology supervisor Kyle Menchhofer said. It will also give building and room information to emergency personnel, Menchhofer said.

"It keeps everyone in the loop," he said.

"This is really terrific and the things that come with this are better than what we have now," Valentine said. "I'm really pleased with Kyle's work and the committee's work on this."

The system's annual cost will be $33,148 or about $2,750 per month, Valentine said. The district pays about $4,200 a month for its current service, he noted.

The district is not bound by a contract, Menchhofer added.

An ethernet switch will cost $1,500 and nearly 230 phones will cost about $14,000, Menchhofer said.

The district will be the first in Ohio to have service with Cincinnati Bell, which deals mainly with government offices.

"They want to get involved with the schools," Menchhofer said.

The board also approved changing the names of two district buildings. The Primary School will now be East Primary and the Intermediate School will be West Intermediate.

"We can't afford to put in one of the new digital signs with the new name but it is a very minimal cost to change the name," Little said.

The board also approved the Time2Learn/Time2Teach school board resolution calling on the U.S. Congress and Obama Administration to reduce testing mandates.

Also Wednesday, the board,

• approved an overnight field trip for the FFA state convention in Columbus on April 30.

• learned the recently purchased a school bus will be delivered today.

• watched a presentation from Monica VanderHorst, high school health and physical education teacher, on her recent trip to Parris Island, S.C., for teachers to experience training as a U.S. Marine.

• watched a presentation from Miller on the recent Visioning Auglaize Leadership and Unity class in which several teachers in the school district took to see various career fields in Auglaize County.

• had an executive session to discuss possible disciplinary action against a school district employee. Little voted against having the session. No action was taken after the session.