Kingsland School Board held a work session meeting on January 3. New board member Cindy Seabright was welcomed onto the board, and took the ceremonial oath of office.
Superintendent (and grades 7-12 principal) Jim Hecimovich has submitted his letter of retirement. His leter stated, in part, “I am announcing my forthcoming retirement from Kingsland Public Schools after serving 21 years with so many amazing people. My final day will be June 30, 2022.”
Hecimovich encouraged the board to move fairly soon on beginning the process of finding a replacement for his position. He said, “You can’t wait until March/April/May or you’re going to have nothing… So it’s a decision that needs to be acted on.” Jackie Horsman said some schools are “outsourcing” the superintendent role, in which a small group of qualified persons help fulfill the duties. But she said this option tends to be too expensive for Kingsland’s budget. Hecimovich’s letter also encouraged the board to strongly consider Principal Scott Klavetter to fill the upcoming superintendent opening. The board will hold a special meeting to discuss how best to fill administrative openings. The special meeting will be either January 18 or 20.
Immediately prior to the regular meeting, the board held their annual organizational meeting. Jackie Horsman was voted to continue in the role of board chair, and Kyle Rader will serve as vice chair. Cindy Seabright will be the board’s clerk, and Natasha Howard will serve as secretary. Twelve committee assignments were decided upon as well.
Becky Bicknese’s report on Community Education included “open gym on Sundays has started with Amanda Rubin as the supervisor. Big thank you to Amanda for stepping up so we could offer this program again.” She also noted that the Father/Daughter Dance is set for February 5. Meal will be provided by Ody’s Meats, and photography will be done by Chuck Emig, with music by DJ Joe.
Activities Director Laurie Hendrickson’s written report to the board included, “I need to find coaches for softball and baseball. I asked the school to post our openings. I am also starting to line up my workers.” She also reported on football, stating, “I was asked again to see if I could do anything about the football situation for next year with a 9-man schedule all season and then playing in 11-man playoffs. I can assure everyone that there is nothing we can do. I talked to the head guy for football at the MSHSL. Jackie was in on that call with me and can verify it is a done deal and we can move forward.” She added that Kingsland had appealed the decision by MSHSL, but the appeal was denied.
Hendrickson also said, “The Officials Association has been reaching out again to have schools move basketball games (to other days). We got lucky the last round; we didn’t have to do anything. But they did say that more is coming in January and February. There ends up being problems dates because most games are on Tuesdays and Fridays. So hopefully we can dodge that bullet again.”
Jason Thompson (Building and Grounds director) submitted a written report. Since he was not present, Hecimovich elaborated on the information, saying, “We had a couple of issues. A boiler down, and then one of our rooftop units also.” He explained that it’s believed both issues were caused by the power surge when the electric power came back on following the outage caused during the recent wind storm in December. Hecimovich said both are up and running again. He added that he’s not aware of any affordable mitigation devices to help prevent this from happening again someday.
The board discussed the staffing shortage in janitorial staff. There was a suggestion of offering some Kingsland students the chance to work part-time to help with some janitorial tasks. Board members said they liked the idea of offering a “real world” work experience to interested students. An application process will soon be announced.
The board’s next regular meeting will be on Wednesday, January 19 at 6 p.m. The public is welcome. Kingsland continues to offer the option for anyone to listen in via Zoom technology.
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