School board hears teacher changes
Teacher changes and handbook alterations were just two of the topics discussed at Monday night's USD 410 board of education meeting.
Hillsboro High School social studies teacher Brian Kennell submitted his resignation to the district. He's been offered a teaching position at Newton High School. Kennell also served as the HHS cross-country coach.
To replace Kennell, the district has offered his job to Stuart Holmes. Holmes is currently the principal at Goessel High School but has resigned from that role because he wants to teach again. In addition to taking over the HHS social studies job, he'll also be the new cross-country coach.
Corey Burton officially resigned from his jobs of teaching business and coaching high school wrestling. He will become the principal of Hillsboro Middle School next year. Science teacher Scott O'Hare will become the new head high school wrestling coach.
HMS seventh-grade teacher Bruce Winkler resigned from that position, and he'll now be only a half-time technology facilitator at the Hillsboro Elementary School computer lab.
Other staff changes include Dennis Boldt taking the head coaching job of middle school boys' basketball, Len Coryea taking the head coaching job of middle school wrestling, and technology assistant Tawnya Siebert resigning.
Vacant supplemental positions now include: head coach of HHS girls' tennis, FCCLA sponsor, assistant coaches for HMS wrestling, boys' basketball, and football, and assistant coaches for HHS volleyball, girls' and boys' tennis, wrestling, and track.
The board also adopted two resolutions formally nonrenewing the teaching contracts of Sharon Jost and Michelle Faul. The district made the decisions not to renew these teachers at the April meeting.
HHS principal Dale Honeck presented several changes to the high school handbook. The USD 410 board will officially adopt the handbook in August.
First, the new handbook will allow high school students to test out of classes. Students can test out of English one through four, algebra one and two, geometry, advanced math and trigonometry, calculus, computer applications one, document processing one, spanish one and two, U.S. history, government, and world history.
According to the new guidelines, if a student wants to try to test out of a class, he or she must make that request to the counselor 90 days before the beginning of the next semester. Students can't test out of classes they're already in, Honeck said.
Students must "master" the course to test out of it, and that means getting a 94 percent in the class, or an "A," he said. They'll also be required to do all normal classwork, such as book reports or papers.
"It's a very ambitious undertaking for a student," Honeck said.
The student's transcript wouldn't list a letter grade for that class — only a "pass" or "fail."
Honeck also brought a new substance abuse policy for athletes. According to the new guidelines, students discovered using tobacco or alcohol will be suspended for one contest date for the first offense, three contest dates for the second offense, and 12 contest dates for the third offense. On the third offense the student will be banned from competing in sports for the rest of high school.
Punishment starts at the second level, or with three games suspended, when it comes to drug use. And in all cases, suspensions carry over from one sports season to the next, Honeck said.
Substance abuse isn't a big problem in Hillsboro, but the district still needs the policy, he said. The guidelines give the students a lot of chances.
Also relating to sports, HHS will now require every athlete to pass six classes in order to be eligible to compete, according to athletic director Max Heinrichs. Before the standard has been five classes out of eight courses.
But HHS hasn't had much problem with this in the past, Heinrichs said. In the past two years, he's had to pull out two athletes because of failed eligibility.
