Sidney School Board trustees sworn into office were (from left) Josh McGahan, Lisa Gorder, Sara McMillen and Randy Iversen. (Photo by Bill Vander Weele)
The Sidney School Board approved allowing eighth-grade students to be part of the high school's drill and cheer teams during its monthly meeting on May 13.
Drill team coach Weslie Zoanni explained that she is losing seven dancers, or about half of her team, due to graduation. In addition, she was disappointed with the amount of participants at a recent tryout.
"Right now, if we have eighth graders, we would have 10 on the team," Zoanni said.
Cheer coach Alyssa Cadwalader added that an extra year of experience would be beneficial to the programs. She said the cheer team has 17 students signed up, but the program had only four members a few years ago.
"The more we can offer any kid, the better," trustee Lisa Gorder said.
Board chair Ben Thogersen agreed that students should be given as many opportunities as possible to excel.
Trustee Randy Iversen made the motion to allow eighth-grade students to be part of the high school programs. The motion was seconded by Gorder, and it was approved unanimously.
During his report, superintendent Brent Sukut said ACT testing results were down a little from last year. A challenge for the district will be finding two new special education teachers to hire.
Sukut said he discussed with county commissioners about a proposed land swap presented by a developer. Sukut, however, didn't act confident that the proposal would move forward.
Thogersen said he feels that the school district should consider selling the school district's piece of unused property. He noted that the city's population and schools' enrollment aren't increasing.
Nathan Roth, technology director, provided an update. The GoGuardian program will provide school officials with alerts if students are using some red flag language.
Trustees approved bids of $39,172 for flooring in the high school's "old" locker rooms and $49,073 for flooring in the gym's balcony. Trustees also approved the bid of $106,000 for 330 new Chromebooks.
Sworn in as trustees were Sara McMillen, Josh McGahan, Iversen and Gorder. Top vote getters in the recent election for the three-year seats were McMillen with 484 votes and McGahan with 341 votes. Kelly Dey, who served as a trustee since 2006, received 330 votes.
Thogersen was unanimously selected to serve as the board's chair and Iversen will continue serving as the board's vice chair. Tracy Click was re-appointed school district clerk.
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