TonganoxieMirror.com

The Tonganoxie School Board approved a handful of hirings and one letter of resignation at Monday’s board meeting.

Members approved unanimously the hiring of: Sue Maurer, bus driver; Angela Oelschlaeger, special education bus driver; Kristen Barnes, TES Title I math teacher; and David Hall, THS assistant girls basketball coach.

The board also approved the resignation of Phyllis McDaniel, THS evening custodian. She plans to retire Dec. 31.

Phone system changes

Superintendent Kyle Hayden reported that the district’s current phone system, through Nortel, is nearing its end of life after four years. Nortel filed for bankruptcy and has been purchased by Avaya. In his technology report, technology coordinator David Milhon noted that to receive technical support from Avaya, a support contract must be created and to renew the contract, the school district must be at the current software level, which it is not. Milhon said in his report that he would be meeting with BHS, a company that currently supports the phone system, in the near future.

Work also continues on connecting the intercom system between the THS east and west campuses.

Hayden said the wiring to connect the two together is there, “but not the equipment to make the two talk to each other,” he said. Hayden said Milhon and he would have meetings with intercom representatives and report back to the board.

Vehicle search continues

Hayden will continue to search for higher-passenger vehicles at the request of the board. At Monday’s meeting, Hayden said he found vans with less than 40,000 miles, but all were 12-passenger vans. Current state regulations require that vans used for student trips have a capacity of 10 or fewer passengers.

Board members Kathy Baragary and Leana Leslie noted through their work in 4-H that they were aware of suburbans with 10-person capacities, as did board member Dan Hopkins through his work in the military. Board members requested the search so that student trips in which the number of students exceeded capacity of regular-sized vans and yet left a great deal of empty seats on busses could be better served.

Board approves sale of building trades house

The board approved purchase of the THS building trades class house.

Dan Lynch, owner of Lynch Real Estate, is the buyer. In the contract, Lynch agrees to $4,000 above material cost of the 209-10 building trades house. The money is for equipment, tool replacement and related expenditures. Per the contract, the buyer agrees to pay an additional $1,500 for the construction and related technology scholarship fund.

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