Gentry School Board OKs raises, creates psychologist position

GENTRY -- The Gentry School Board has approved the creation of a new school psychologist position in the district at a base salary of $60,000 per year.

The new job was created due to an emergency need in the district, according to Superintendent Terrie Metz.

During the May 20 meeting, the board also passed, on a final reading, the raises proposed for teachers and support staff. The board approved, on their first readings, two policy changes authorizing a $1,000 pay raise for teachers and a 50-cents-per-hour (amounting to nearly $1,000 for the year) pay raise for classified staff in the 2022-23 school year.

The board approved a recommendation to make direct deposit the required method of receiving paychecks from the district.

The board also approved the $434,271.14 bid of Springfield Grocery for food services in the next school year. It is reviewing recommended price increases for meals -- student breakfasts to increase from $1.50 to $1.60; student lunches from $2.85 to $2.95; adult breakfast from $2 to $2.50; adult lunches from $3.75 to $4.50; reduced-price student breakfasts to 30 cents and reduced-price student lunches to 40 cents.

The board asked that the cost increase be examined to see if it was sufficient to cover actual expenses incurred by the district to subsidize the meals program. The board will take up the matter again at its July meeting.

The board approved a $30,644 expenditure for Promethean Boards and Chromeboxes, as well as educational software upgrades, for use in the new classroom facility.

Additional training days were added to contracts for middle school and intermediate school teachers for specialized training above and beyond the regular professional development days required.

Reported to the board was the purchase of playground equipment at the middle school at a price of $24,880, under a TIPS contract. The 4-bay, 8-swing equipment comes with the required mulch base. It was reported that the old equipment, which was installed when the school was built, fell apart when taken down for the installation of the new portable classroom facility and could not be moved and reinstalled. It was heavily used by students.

Jason Barrett, transportation and facilities supervisor, told the board that three of the four units of the 10-classroom portable building were on their way from San Antonio. He said the support piers and utilities were installed for the building and the arrival and setup of the building appeared to be on schedule.

He also reported progress on the HVAC projects for the high school and middle school gyms, with notification from the state for approved funding, and anticipated the project would be put out for bids soon.

He reported the completion of a new roof on the agriculture building from a TIPS vendor who honored a bid from four years ago. The decision to put a new roof on the building was made on an emergency basis because of leaks in the old roof.

The board also approved the hiring of Coye Cripps as maintenance supervisor, Anthony Dutton as middle and high school choir teacher, and Andrea Mullen and Savannah Lyons as intermediate school teachers.

The board also approved the resignations of Troy Holman, high school math teacher; Jordan Campbell, high school social studies teacher and coach; and Justin Demieville, middle school social studies teacher.

Mike Mullen was transferred to be a middle school science teacher, and Karen Williams was approved to receive an Opportunity Culture Direct Reach Teacher II stipend.

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