JAY – School Committee members accepted the resignation of Chairman James Durrell from the board Thursday. Former Chairman Clint Brooks was elected as chairman in 2-1 vote, with Gene Uhuad opposing and Brooks abstaining.
Uhuad had nominated Vice Chairman Amy Pineau for the position. Tim Toothaker nominated Brooks.
A secret ballot declared Brooks the winner of the nomination by a 3-to-1 vote.
Board members had thanked Durrell for his dedication to the school system after Pineau read Durell’s resignation letter.
Superintendent Robert Wall said the board has the authority to appoint a new member to fill in the position until the next election.
Wall said he would recommend the board ask the person who had the next highest votes in the last election. That was former committee member Robin Roberts, who was present Thursday.
$10.8M school budget unveiled
JAY – The school superintendent unveiled a $10.8 million spending plan Thursday to support Jay schools in 2004-05.
Of that, $10.6 million is proposed to run the educational system, which reflects $420,480 or 4 percent increase over the existing budget, and $213,263 is for capital improvements that voters would see in separate articles.
It was the first look at the proposal, which is scheduled to be taken up in-depth at 6 p.m. Thursdays, Jan. 15 and Jan. 22, at the middle school cafeteria.
Before the board saw the budget, administrative adjustments reduced initial requests by $190,536, which included eliminating three elementary classroom teachers and reducing elementary art to halftime due to a decreasing number of students.
However, Superintendent Robert Wall’s budget includes new positions of a kindergarten through 12th grade literacy teacher, two world language teachers – one at the elementary school and one at the middle school – and a system-wide curriculum coordinator.
The overall reduction of elementary school staff is 2 teachers, Wall said.
Even with the proposal for four new positions in the system, there would be 170 employees, two less employees than now.
Three individual articles are being proposed for capital improvements. Two are short-term and the other is capital project reserve.
A $57,000 article covers moving a distance learning system from the high school to the middle school.
Another article is for $95,000 to install an elevator at the high school. Wall said there is a student coming up from the middle school who will need to use an elevator. The school only has a chairlift now.
The third article is for $61,263 to build reserve accounts for projects including $20,000 for asbestos abatement at the elementary school, $10,000 in a roof reserve and $14,428 in a bus reserve.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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