Buses to now pick students up in apartment complex

Students living at Forest Hills Apartments will no longer have to enter or exit their school bus near a busy state highway after the decision was made to allow buses enter the complex to pick up and drop off students.

Superintendent Laura Hammack announced the change at the April 15 school board meeting. Previously, students had been entering or exiting school buses while they were stopped on State Road 46 East. Hammack said that stop is one of the worst for student safety.

“They’ve done a nice job of trying to walk students up when the buses stop, but it’s a lot of kids and the highway. It’s just always been one we’re just not super comfortable with,” she said.

Past management did not want buses pulling into the complex to pick up students. Hammack credited district Transportation Director Scott Waddell with helping to make this change happen after he met with the apartment complex’s new management.

“What we’re really loving about Scott is that he takes situations that we might have always thought always have been and he’s just looking at it very differently from a logistics perspective,” Hammack said.

“Scott sat down and had a conversation with management and they have now agreed. We will be able to load those kids in the complex. That is safer for our students. That is safer for any vehicle on State Road 46. It is a wonderful, wonderful safety improvement.”

Board members were happy to hear about the change.

“The times I leave early in the morning that I have to go that way to see my first patient, I am always slowing down and I am always putting my blinkers on because I know have to get the traffic stopped behind me because they are not paying attention,” board President Carol Bowden said.

“To hear that is really wonderful because I worry about that so much.”

Board sets minimum price set for CRC building

After getting two appraisals, the Brown County school board has established the minimum bid price to purchase the Career Resource Center building on Main Street. It is $500,000.

The property will be posted in the newspaper and bids are expected to be opened at the May 6 board meeting.

Selling the CRC building is part of the cost-cutting strategies the school board approved in February due to declining enrollment. Brown County Intermediate School will be closed and remade into the Educational Service Center. It will also house CRC programs and a daycare/preschool program.

Current fourth-graders will remain in their elementary schools for fifth grade. Current fifth-graders will move to the junior high school for sixth grade, and the junior high will be renamed Brown County Middle School. The middle school will serve all the district’s sixth- through eighth-graders.

The plan is sell the CRC building and then use the money from that sale to help in renovating BCIS to “better serve adult learners,” according to a presentation on the district’s 10-year vision plan.

School board approves staff changes for next year

The Brown County Schools Board of Trustees approved the following at the April 15 meeting:

• A resolution authorizing the disposal of certain real property, the CRC building.
• Hiring Katherine Yoder as a contracted English language services provider, not to exceed the number of hours payable annually through the Non-English Speaking grant, at a rate of $35 per hour.
• Separating Brown County Schools Superintendent Laura Hammack, effective June 30. This was not a termination.
• Separating Helmsburg Elementary School paraprofessional Joanna Dolph at the conclusion of the 2020-2021 school year. This was not a termination.
• Separating Brown County Intermediate School fifth-grade volleyball coach Kortney Thalls, effective March 17. This was not a termination.
• Separating BCIS sixth-grade volleyball coach Rebekah Bryan, effective March 11. This was not a termination.
• Separating BCS bus driver Stacy Sims, effective April 13. This was not a termination.
• Transferring Brown County Junior High School vocal music teacher Daniel Lyng to Brown County High School drama teacher starting with the 2021-2022 school year. He is a replacement for Laurie Godfrey.
• Transferring BCIS intense intervention assistant Maggie Hendershot to Sprunica Elementary School preschool teacher starting with the 2021-2022 school year. She is a replacement for Emily Roberts.
• Transferring BCIS paraprofessional Kimberley Hathaway to Van Buren Elementary School administrative assistant effective May 5. She is a replacement for Denise Campbell.