The five-year forecast for the Huber Heights City Schools was presented to the board of education by district treasurer Ann Bernardo Thursday night.
"The most important thing is that the levy is coming up on Nov. 7 and we need that levy to pass," said Bernardo. "It's six percent of our budget bringing in $3.6 million per year. That helps with the operations of our buildings and the day to day operations."
Bernardo said the district will be in the red by 2010 by over $9 million and will need to ask for new monies probably by 2008.
The board heard a presentation on the Twilight Program at Wayne High School by Bob Hankey and Loraine Perna. Perna said the program assists 125 students per year, one subject at a time, between 3 to 5 p.m. She said the program is modeled after the same curriculum normally used at Wayne so that kids don't think it's an easy way out. She said there are no more than 12 students per session.
"I feel we have a very strong impact on the kids that otherwise would not graduate from Wayne High School," said Perna.
Hankey said this program has helped hundreds of kids to become successful.
Twilight School is Wayne High School's alternative education program and has been in existence since the 1998-99 school year.
"I welcome anyone of you to visit Twilight School at any time--unannounce," said Hankey. "I am very proud of the fact that what you will see when you visit is a library-like atmosphere. Our kids are well behaved and hard working. That was not the case when they were attending regular day school. Most Twilight students have a history of failing grades and behavioral issues."
While Twilight students are supposed to be working part time during the day, getting hired is not always an easy task. In response, Hankey said they have collaborated with Miami Valley Resource Services to provide jobs for some of the students who have disabilities or who qualify as low income.
Hankey said one of society's issues is teenage pregnancy. To address that, on Thursdays, the program has a counselor from Project Empower come to Twilight and work with a group of teenage mothers (and one teenage dad) to assist them with the difficulty task of parenting.
Nico Gonzalez, a student in the program, said that when he attended regular classes, that he got bad grades, rarely attended school and got into fights. He said he is now doing his work, passing his classes and has not been involved in a fight.
Board member Carl Fisher said he was pleased this program had turned out so well.
During his comments, Superintendent William Kirby said he was pleased to be in Huber Heights and working in a school district that values an alternative school and conducts a fall graduation.
"There are two programs that were here when I got here; both of them are just excellent programs," said Kirby.
The board approved 66 extra duty positions. They accepted the resignations of Dee Dee Raine, Sara Bochenek and Paige Heermans, the varsity, JV and ninth grade girls volleyball coaches for personal reasons.
Steve Jutras was approved as the varsity boys basketball coach by a 3-1-1 vote. Board member Anita Brock cast the no vote while Karen Weaver abstained. Weaver said she didn't know the issues for either side as the reason for abstaining from the vote.
"At this time, I feel that Mr. Jutras is not what's best for the varsity program at Wayne High School," Brock told the Courier.
The board endorsed grant applications for the Huber Heights Athletic Foundation for paperless school board meetings ($8000), in-school field trips for seven elementary schools ($7,000) and funding for student resource officers and the Crime Watch Program (28,000).
In other business, the board approved the following items:
*Granted the administration permission to advertise for bids to replace the roof on the gym and the commons area at Studebaker Middle School.
Granted the administration permission to advertise for bids to replace the fire alarm system and egress lighting at Monticello Elementary School.
Approved adding a boys bowling team and a girls bowling team as team sports at Wayne. Kirby said he had discussed this with the Huber Heights Education Association and that they support the recommendation. He said the sport would begin in November and that the stipend for coaching would be set at .07 for the head coach and .04 for the JV coach.
Recommended tuition costs be waived for seven foreign exchange students for 2006-07.
Approved reimbursing parents in lieu of transportation for students attending 11 private or parochial schools.
Approved 6 p.m. on June 3 as the Wayne graduation date at the Nutter Center.
Approved payment of leave of absence credit to the State Retirement System for four former employees.
The board will meet in regular session at 7 p.m. on Nov. 9 at Monticello Elementary School.
"Ads published on this site are not for republication in print or web
media without the expressed written consent of both the advertiser and
The Brown Publishing Company."
