In the wake of the recent school board election, the Warren Township High School District 121 Board of Education Tuesday welcomed back two board members, who retained their seats, as well as a new member.
Board members Tony DeMonte and Steve Carlson retained their seats in the April 4 consolidated election, and newcomer Beth Pope won a spot on the board. Board member Thomas Drake did not seek reelection, and instead retired from the board after serving two terms.
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Drake was recognized during the meeting, which served as his last board meeting, for his eight years of service.
“These have been a very rewarding eight years,” Drake said. “I’ll be back. I attended the board for two years in the audience before I became a member, so don’t be surprised if I show up in the audience to give you a piece of my mind.”
The other members of the Board of Education praised Drake for his years of service.
“I have appreciated your guidance more than you realize,” board President Paul Schulz said to Drake during the meeting.
Once the new board was seated, the board voted on new positions, something that it does every two years when new board members are elected. Schulz was reelected to serve as the new board’s president for the next two years, Steve Carlson was elected to be the board’s vice president and Natalia Martinez was elected to serve as the secretary.
Drake isn’t the only person who is leaving the district. During the meeting, the board approved the resignation of Michael Engel, the assistant superintendent of business services and operations. Engel, who oversaw the district’s finances throughout its years of financial trouble leading up to the approval of a referendum last year, will leave the district on June 30. The district also approved several other resignations and retirements of staff members.
While the district is losing some members of staff, Superintendent Daniel Woestman proposed that the district create several more positions. Since the passing of last year’s referendum, which brings in approximately $13.25 million more in funding for the district each year, the board has approved $1.2 million to create new positions, including two school psychologists, two ESL English teachers, two ESL math teachers, a business office family support specialist, a security director, internal security staff, two members of maintenance staff, a director of multilingual services and family outreach and an assistant director of athletics and activities.
“The referendum passed, and the board asked us to be looking through and considering what types of positions we’ve committed to through that referendum conversation with the community,” Woestman said.
Woestman recommended that the board further approve an attendance and family support specialist, an intervention coordinator, a bilingual counselor, a math teacher, a paraprofessional for credit recovery courses and a dean of students.
“These requests are really focused on our student services,” Woestman said. “They are very targeted toward students that have high levels of need.”
Woestman did not discuss a total cost that these positions would have, which led to board members saying that they would take it into further consideration once they know the amount the positions would cost.
“I appreciate the description of all of these positions and I like the path that we’re going down, but until we get a total cost for all of these positions it’s really hard to give support to it,” Schulz said. “We have to see how they’re going to fit into our financial projections coming down the road. I’ll be very curious once we get those financial projections.”
No vote was taken on the staffing recommendations, and Woestman said that the district’s administration will take the board’s comments into consideration and come back with further suggestions at the next meeting.