Matt Burke will serve another year as president of the Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board.  The vote was unanimous.  Sylvia Shepler will serve as vice president, while Michelle Fullhart will be the board secretary during 2018.

In other board activity during the Wednesday night session:

–Final approval was given for new classes to be offered at both high schools.  The courses had been discussed at length at a previous board meeting.  For more details, use this link.

–The board unanimously gave its stamp of approval to new insurance contracts.  The board is using a new insurance broker and will spend roughly $893,000 on the revised policies with Liberty Mutual and Chubb.  This includes property/casualty and Cyber policies.  The previous insurance contracts cost the school system over $1 million.

–The board postponed a decision on a proposed contract with the Metiri Group to better publicize the HSE21 program.  Board members complained that the agenda item was added at the last minute and the board did not have time to review the proposal.  A vote is tentatively scheduled for the next board meeting.

–The board approved schedules of plans for 2018 meetings.  The board can call a meeting, if there is a need with 48 hours notice (not including weekends and holidays).  With that in mind, here is the schedule of regular board meetings for 2018:

January 10, 24
February 14
March 14, 28
April 11, 25
May 9
June 13, 27
July 11
August 8, 22
September 12, 26
October 10
November 14, 28
December 12

Note that there are some months the board will be meeting only once, a departure from the normal schedule of 2 sessions per month.

For a listing of planned work sessions, which are public meetings of the board, use this link.  

–The board honored Fall Creek Elementary Third Grade Teacher Bill Marquardt and his class, who raised nearly $2,000 dollars to support a family with five foster children for the holidays.