Sargent school administration addresses teacher shortage

Emotions continue to run high for some Sargent School District patrons in the wake of the non-renewal of Principal Cory Grint’s contract in Feb. Nearly 40 people attended the May 9 school board meeting. One person spoke at length during public comments, expressing their opinion that the school board handled the situation badly and a school board member was heard “bragging that they would fire Mr. Grint.” She also said she contacted the State Board of Education.

Concerns were expressed that the situation was not discussed with Superintendent Rod Richardson nor was the situation address publicly in school board meetings before action was taken.

Another person spoke briefly, commenting that school board members act like the situation is over. “It’s not over,” the person said.

Mr. Grint has accepted the position of principal for next year at Ansley Public Schools. Sargent Public Schools has hired Gordon Goodman as principal for next 2023-24.

In other business, there was discussion between the board and attendees, many of them faculty members, about hiring for junior high English and math. Frustration was expressed on both sides with teachers talking about heavy work loads and burn out. Superintendent Richardson said, “We are doing our darnedest to get someone in. We aren’t the only school going through this.” Attendees were asked for suggestions and several were offered including hiring incentives, moving credit, establishing a school day care, and retention stipends.

Concern was expressed by a parent about the new start time of 9 a.m. on Wednesday, asking if they consulted with parents before making the change. A “Before School” program was suggested to help parents with scheduling.

Principal Cory Grint said scores “saw improvement” in the latest round of student tests.

Staff member Jerry Davenport spoke, saying rumors of inappropriate material on school computers “won’t die.” He said, “In the interest of transparency, I had the service unit do an audit.” Davenport reported while there were some inappropriate hits from school computers, some of those were false positives. “Some are duplications, some are legit,” he said. “For example, I was looking for a projector and it came back identified as a porn site,” he said. He said student computers are “double-filtered” and no inappropriate hits were from student computers.

The possibility of hiring a communication specialist was discussed, a position that could be responsible for the school website as well as facilitating communication between school and parents. Several applications for such communications were suggested.

The co-op meeting with Loup County Schools was discussed.

Anger over being told in the past that they couldn’t attend the co-op meeting was expressed by some in the crowd. On May 9, it was made clear that the meeting is open to the public.

The purchase of a new scoreboard was discussed. Computer purchases for the school were approved.

Two new faculty hires were approved. Michael Moses will teach history. MaKenzie Kreiger will teach Pre-school. It was reported that housing is limited so anyone with suggestions for housing should contact Mr. Richardson.