Former Henryetta high school coach Dutch Vandenborn is going to be the athletic director at HHS next year.
He was hired on a half-day basis Monday night at the July school board meeting.
Board members also hired Shannon Vassaur for the high school cafeteria and Felicia Greenhaw and Kendall Hodge as paraprofessionals.
Resignations were accepted from Winter Whitlock who was an elementary teacher’s aide, Nathaniel Thompson has high school social studies, Jenny Hunnicutt, first grade and Danae Green second, grade teacher.
Superintendent Dwayne Noble told board members the school received a $125,000 PE grant. That will be awarded in $25,000 increments over a five year period. He also reported the FFA program was awarded a $29,500 grant and the school STEM program received $15,000 in grant money.
“This is big news for our school,” he said. “We should be proud of everyone who helped with those grants.”
The school will be providing space for a coordinator who will be in charge of the PE grants for several area schools. “We are not paying that salary,” Noble said. “That person will be an employee of the State Department of Education.”
Board members are going to be looking into the purchase of land just west of the elementary building that is now occupied by a local church. Noble said he was approached by church members who are interested in selling the property. No price was given.
The impact of social media was one of the topics at a workshop Noble, high school principal Kelly Furer and elementary principal Jayme Matlock attended.
“We had an attorney from the state who showed how many teachers got in trouble around the state for their comments on social media. Virtually every county had issues.” Noble said many of those problems started out as innocent posts but still, “got them in hot water. We can’t just say something. We have got to be more stringent about those posts.”
Furer said that same workshop reveled high school seniors can now take 18 hours of concurrent education and junior class members enroll in nine hours. Previously, juniors could only take nine hours.
The issue of medical marijuana was also addressed with school administrators being told they will have to be closely looking at guidelines if a student gets a license to use the substance.
“We will still go by our guidelines on smoking and vaping,” she said.