The West Liberty Community School District Board of Education accepted two resignations at their meeting Monday, Aug. 1.
Kelly Butcher, the high school librarian, and Jennifer Clendineng, a math teacher at the high school, both submitted their letters of resignation.
Board of Education member Rebecca Vargas commented on Butcher’s resignation.
“I want to say that I’m always sad to see someone go but I was really sad to see Kelly Butcher go,” Vargas said. “She was definitely someone who really motivated my child to read so I will miss having her.”
Vargas asked what the plan was to fill those two positions.
Superintendent Shaun Kruger asked West Liberty High School principal Brenda Arthur-Miller to talk about the plan for the math position. This was discussed first during the meeting.
“We intend to advertise to see but we do have a plan in place that we can move someone into that position that’s already qualified and have their math endorsement,” Arthur-Miller said.
“OK, so we don’t have a long-term sub for that position?” Vargas asked Arthur-Miller.
Arthur-Miller said a long-term substitute wouldn’t be needed because there was already another highly qualified teacher in the district who could take over that position.
The hole this person would leave is coming from another position in the district that doesn’t need a teacher to be certified, Kruger added. They would replace that person with a non-certified teacher.
“So are you going to permanently move them into math or keep looking for math?” Vargas asked Miller-Arthur.
Kruger and her haven’t spoken about that part yet, Arthur-Miller said. She said she couldn’t really speak about that yet.
The conversation turned to the open librarian position at the high school after that. Vargas said she remembered seeing in an email the district was working with the local Area Education Association (AEA) but asked for more details on the plan.
Until the district gets a certified media specialist for that position, Arthur-Miller and the assistant principal have been working with AEA, Kruger said. The AEA media specialist works with all 20 districts in the AEA region and is helping to keep the high school library going until a replacement is found.
Board of Education Ed Moreno joked there were several strong library connections at the board meeting that may be interested, which brought laughter from everyone in the room.
West Liberty Public Library Director Allie Paarsmith, and Eastern Iowa Community College’s Assistant to the Dean of Library’s Deb Lowman spoke out about the issue with the books parents in the community wanted removed.
The resignations were approved unanimously by the Board of Education.
There were also several hires made at this meeting. Dorianne Rees was hired as a paraprofessional for the high school. Mya Anderson, Nicol Blamett, Marsha Jacobs and Sequoia Molina were hired as paraprofessionals for the elementary school. Audra Heick was hired as the assistant volleyball coach for the high school team.
More from the Board of Education meeting will be published in the Aug. 11 edition of The West Liberty Index.