Benny Westcott
By Benny Westcott
Of The New Era
The Sweet Home School District’s 2022-23 proposed budget was released for public review and a budget message from Acting Supt. Terry Martin was delivered to district Budget Committee members at a public meeting at the District Office before the School Board’s monthly meeting on Monday, May 9.
Budget Committee members include school board members Sara Hoffman, Kevin Hill, Debra Brown, Jason Van Eck, Dale Keene, Jason Redick, Jim Gourley, and Mike Reynolds, and appointed citizens Lori McKinnon and Don Hopkins.
In his budget message, Martin laid out some challenges the district will face in the upcoming fiscal year, noting that inflation recently reached a 40-year high, interest rates are rapidly moving higher, and labor markets are extremely tight, making it difficult to fill open positions.
He wrote that one of the district’s priorities for the 2022-23 school year is to maintain manageable class sizes.
The proposed budget maintains staffing positions even though enrollment has declined during the pandemic.
“By doing so, we will have more favorable student-teacher ratios throughout the district than we did prior to the pandemic,” Martin wrote.
He stressed that the district is able to afford maintaining staffing positions by utilizing state Student Investment Account grant funds and federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds.
Martin wrote that the district will continue its long-range facility planning process during the coming year.
“We have made a lot of progress improving our school facilities over the past several years, but we still have more to accomplish,” he wrote.
He noted that the district is waiting to hear if it will be awarded a state seismic rehabilitation grant for Oak Heights Elementary School. He also stated that Sweet Home High School’s career technical education buildings and the B and C academic buildings are aging, the swimming pool has a growing number of issues, and potential enrollment growth in the district could result in needing additional classroom space.
Until the long-range facility plan is complete, Martin noted, the district continues to prioritize funding a long-term maintenance fund the school board created nearly 20 years ago “so the district would not have to rely entirely on bonds to pay for capital improvements and major repairs.”
The proposed budget also includes hiring a secondary mental health counselor, as well as updating the district’s math and secondary language arts curriculum. Parents and community members will be given an opportunity to review the staff recommendations and provide feedback before the school board is asked to approve the updated curriculum.
Additionally, the budget includes a $500,000 payment to the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) from the PERS reserve fund to reduce future PERS rates.
At the School Board meeting following the Budget Committee meeting, the board appointed Mike Adams to the school board to fill the Position #2 (Liberty) board vacancy.
Adams, an attorney, has been a resident in the Sweet Home School District for 25 years. His daughters Kristen and Elizabeth Adams graduated from Sweet Home High School in 2017 and 2020, respectively.
Adams has served on the district’s school board twice before. He was elected in June 2011 and served until January 2014. He was then appointed in January 2017, serving until June 2017.
Adams has 22 years of experience as a practicing attorney, and is currently employed as city attorney for the City of Toledo. He has also been a Special Deputy District Attorney/Deputy County Attorney for Linn County and a legislative aide in the Oregon Legislature.
He served nine years on the Sweet Home Planning Commission, and has completed more than 25 years of active duty and National Guard service.
“I hope to help provide a good education to kids, and have a hand in making sure there’s good leadership steering the ship,” Adams said. “I’m happy to be back.”
Director of Teaching and Learning Barbi Riggs shared that summer school for K-9 students will take place from June 27 to July 22 at the Junior High.
Already, 160 students have signed up, she said. Summer school at the high school will take place in August.
Riggs said that at the four- week summer school camp for K-9 students, “We’re really going to focus on getting some academics back into our summer school. Everything’s back to normal, and what we want to see is this summer really close the gap on some of our school loss.”
She said the summer school, for which 10 certified and 11 classified teachers have been hired, will have a very strong literature and math component.
The program will also partner with the Sweet Home Community Pool. After summer school is over for the day, kids will be bussed to the pool, where they will do a safety swim and some free time swimming.
Riggs described the schooling for high schoolers as a “credit recovery summer school.” It will focus on nutrition and weight training. Students will have the opportunity to receive an elective credit.
“I couldn’t be more proud that we are back, and we really want to help those kids catch up from some lost time,” Riggs said. “They’ve made leaps and bounds this year in academics, but this is just one more way to support our kids.”
In other action, School Board members:
— Unanimously approved a contract agreement with classified staff that includes a 4.5% cost of living increase, plus step increases for the upcoming fiscal year.
— Unanimously approved the proposed 2022-23 school calendar. Tuesday, Jan. 3, which had been a professional development day, was converted to an in-person classroom day.
President’s Day will be a paid holiday for teachers, but not precedent-setting.
— Approved the hire of Sirena Hepburn, sixth grade teacher at Holley Elementary, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Approved the hire of Jarid Adams, social studies teacher at the High School, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Approved the hire of Michael Stevenson, counselor at Foster Elementary, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Approved the hire of Madelyn Hawken, .50 language arts/.50 social studies teacher at the Junior High School, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Approved the hire of Evan Teter, PE teacher at Foster Elementary, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Approved the hire of Tiffany Irwin, Junior High counselor, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Approved the hire of Alyson Ellis, Junior High special education teacher – BLS, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Accepted a resignation from Emmi Collier, PE teacher at Foster Elementary, effective June 17, 2022.
— Accepted the resignation of Stephanie Deneen-Rodrigues, kindergarten teacher at Oak Heights, effective June 17, 2022.
— Accepted the resignation of Hope Fears, language arts teacher at the Junior High, effective June 17, 2022.
— Accepted the resignation of Sarah Fountain, first grade teacher at Oak Heights, effective June 17, 2022.
— Approved the hire of Andrea Foley, high school family and consumer science teacher, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Approved the hire of Joni Ortiz, high school biology/life science teacher, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Accepted the resignation from Bailey Bronson, social studies teacher at the high school, effective June 17, 2022.
— Approved the hire of Cheryl Jones, third grade teacher at Oak Heights, for the 2022-23 school year.
— Approved the temporary placement of Mark Looney as acting principal of the Junior High, effective May 3, 2022, for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year. Looney has served as an administrator at both Sweet Home High School and the Junior High, where he has been vice principal under Martin.
— Approved the temporary placement of Chris Hiassen as assistant principal of the Junior High effective May 6, 2022 for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year. Hiassen retired last year after serving as assistant principal at the High School.
— Approved the hire of Tenille Sayers, second grade teacher at Holley Elementary.