The Switzerland County School Board met for a special session on Monday night, and as expected the board quickly conducted two main items of business – both dealing with Wilma Swango.
Currently a member of the school board representing the town of Vevay; Wilma Swango on Monday night officially offered her resignation, which was approved unanimously by the other board members.
But she wasn’t going far.
Immediately after the resignation was accepted, the board moved to hire Wilma Swango as the school corporation’s new business manager and treasurer – a position that she held from 1989 until 2002.
She was elected to the school board in 2004.
Because state law forbids a person to work in a school corporation and also serve on the school board, once Wilma Swango agreed to return as treasurer, it first became necessary to resign her position on the board.
Which led to Monday’s meeting.
In hiring her, the school board approved a $50,00 per year salary, and also a $100,000 bond.
Wilma Swango also named Melissa May as the school corporation’s assistant treasurer. She will have a salary of $40,000 per year with a bond of $75,000.
School superintendent Tracy Caddell said that the school board expects to name Wilma Swango’s replacement on the board at a special meeting set for July 30th.
At the end of Monday’s meeting, school board president Andy Truitt stood up and thanked Wilma Swango for her service to the board.
“We’re very happy to have you in the position you’re in, but we are very sad that you’re leaving the board,” Andy Truitt told the new treasurer.
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In other business conducted by the school board:
– The board heard five proposals from high school principal Candis Haskell: (1) an adjustment to the school’s drug testing policy that will necessitate a student and parent signing the policy each year, rather than the current policy that has everyone sign the policy as a freshman and then it is effective for all four years the student is in the high school.
(2) The Junior-Senior Prom would be officially designated by the school corporation as an extra curricular activity. (3) A “Student in Good Standing” who has at least a C grade in a class could opt out of taking one day of exams. Instead the school would provide field trips, programs, or other activities for the student to participate in once coming to school. (4) A new optional scheduling procedure tailored to each student would be implemented. (5) The science lab fee would be raised to $12 per student per year.
The board tabled all of these proposals so that it may more closely look at each of them.
- Switzerland County Elementary teacher Debbie Allen asked the board when it expected to name a new principal for the building. She was told that the board expects to name a principal at its July 23rd meeting.
– Valerie Chambers Smith was officially hired as a high school science teacher. She is a graduate of Switzerland County High School and comes to the school corporation from the business world.