By Clara Osten,
clara@wayneherald.com
New leadership was elected to start the Wayne Community School's Board of Education meeting on Monday.
Dr. Jodi Pulfer will now serve as board president. She replaces Dr. Jeryl Nelson, who held the position last year.
Also during the annual board organization portion of the meeting, Jaime Manz was elected vice president; Deb Daum was appointed recording secretary and Mary Jean Roberson was appointed treasurer.
Board members then listened to a presentation by Stuart Clark and Bill Heinemann with ESU #1. The local ESU works with 23 schools in this portion of the state and provides a number of services to the districts.
"We keep track of the costs of these services and ways to keep them down," Clark said.
Information was shared on the Special Education contract the school has with the ESU and how each year's projections are determined.
"We want to make sure we are doing what you (Wayne Community Schools) need," Heinemann said.
The board will take action on the contract at its February meeting.
In other action, the board voted to move forward with an interlocal agreement with the City of Wayne.
The agreement will allow the city to work toward putting a sales tax asking on the May primary election ballot. The tax would be used for the Wayne Community Activity Center Project and Improvement.
Superintendent Dr. Mark Lenihan explained the school's responsibilities with the agreement. This would involve having a committee with three representatives from the school meet at least once per year during the 10 year agreement. There could possibly be some land shift from the school to the city and from the city to the school, but the exact details have not been finalized.
Board member Lynn Junck said "it is still open-ended on what it will look like and there needed to be some discussion on what it will look like. This is not going to be under our control."
Board member Justin Davis said he felt this "is an important partnership" and Dr. Pulfer said "it doesn't cost us (the school district) anything."
Board members voted to authorize the superintendent to execute the documents necessary for Wayne Community Schools to enroll in the Educator Health Alliance/Blue Cross Blue Shield Health and Dental Insurance (EHA/BCBS)
The district has been with ETNA (formerly Coventry) insurance for a number of years and insurance questions have been handled by Steve Muir with the Elkorn Valley Agency.
However, due to rising costs with the company, the district reached out to EHA/BCBS and worked with a negotiation team to arrive at better rates for the district's health and dental insurance.
Prior to reaching this agreement with EHA/BCBS, Wayne Community Schools was one of only four schools in the state that did not have coverage with the company.
Superintendent Lenihan explained to the board some of the changes that will take place with the new coverage, along with a number of similarities.
Board members also expressed their appreciation to Steve Muir for all the work he has done in regard to handling insurance questions over the years.
Approval was given for the negotiated agreement with the Wayne Education Association for the 2022-2023 school year.
Members of the board's Negotiations committee said the process went well. The agreement calls for a $600 increase in the base salary, bringing it to $38,000. With insurance coverage, the total compensation package includes a 2.715 percent increase.
The 2022-2023 School Calendar was approved.
Dr. Lenihan told the board that he had worked to make some changes to allow school to start one week later than originally projected. He said that the goal with developing each year's calendar is to have the semesters have a nearly equal number of days. Generally, the second semester is slightly longer than the first and this will be the case in 2022-2023 with eight extra days in the second semester.
The calendar calls for school to start for students on Aug. 17. Classes will dismiss for the Christmas holiday on Dec. 22 and resume on Jan. 4, 2023.
During Administrative reports, Dr. Lenihan presented an update on the Strategic Planning process. He said that the administration and board will have a chance to review a summary of the findings and a needs assessment will be the next step in the process.
The Wayne Community Schools Board of Education will next meet in regular session on Monday, Feb. 14 at 5 p.m. in the junior-senior library.
