Dale Board of Education members have hired three new teachers and approved amending the calendar for the 2024-2025 school year.
After spending about 30 minutes in executive session, board members returned to open meeting. They then approved a motion to hire Kayla Dingus to teach Middle School Math, Erika Smith as a first grade teacher and Joy Griffin as a high school teacher.
Dingus currently teaches seventh grade at Shawnee Middle School, Smith is currently teaching at Barnard Elementary in Tecumseh and Griffin has 30 years experience teaching English.
Concerning the school calendar, Aug. 12-14 will be Professional Days with the first day of class Thursday, Aug. 15.
Two days in April of 2025, April 4 and 11, when no school was planned, now school will be in session on those days.
In their reports, Elementary Principal Tamee Daniel advised board members there are 352 students in Pre-K through 4th grade. During a literacy program last week, 110 students completedseven of nine stations for a total of 110 activities.
Middle School Principal Kim Powell told the board members there are 281 students in grades 5-8 and that pre-enrollment for next year is under way.
High School Principal Erick Muncy informed the board members there are 226 students at the high school level and April 17 a career day is planned from 8:30-11 a.m. On April 9, Juniors will take the ACT and he reminded them graduation is May 13 at Firelake Arena.
School Supt. Will Jones reported to the board that the new cafeteria generator is up and functioning.
During his report, Jones reviewed financial information with the board showing how March of this year compared to the same month in 2023.
The warrants as of March 2024 were $4,353,051 and in March of 2023 they were $3,969,988. That’s an increase of $383,063 over March of 2023, he noted.
Building Fund cash balance in March of this year was $2,097,241 compared to $177,148 in March of 2023. That’s an increase of $1,920,093 and Jones attributed that to insurance money.
“The roofing project is to start as soon as school is out,” he reminded board members.
The General Fund cash balance in March of this year stood at $1,897,749, about $909,860 more than the $987,889 balance in March of 2023, he said.