Caliche will move to 6-man football next year
Superintendent gives school security update
Caliche High School will be moving down to 6-man football next season. The announcement was made by RE-1 Valley Superintendent Dr. Martin Foster at a school board meeting on Tuesday.
In an email, Caliche Athletic Director Chris Roth explained that after much consideration and deliberation, the decision was made to pursue an appeal of the school’s placement in Colorado as an 8-man football team. This was the culmination of work that started in early August and was pursued in greater earnest when Caliche had to play several games with 12 players and Merino with only 8 players. On Tuesday, CHSAA officially gave the school its approval to move down to 6-man football.
Caliche will play in the 6-Man North Conference and the schedule is set by the classification. Opponents will include Briggsdale, Fleming, North Park, Peetz, Prairie and Weldon Valley.
Roth noted that the 6-man field is 80-by-40 yards, which is 20 yards shorter than the current field. This means the school will have to survey and mark out its new field size and buy new goalposts and set them 20 yards closer together. Caliche is also working on getting new lights and with the field being shorter Roth said it should open up some more affordable options.
Dr. Foster is confident that the school will be able to make all the changes required and suggested some of Caliche’s needs could be included in the long-range master plan that Neenan Archistruction is currently working on for the district. He recently had a meeting with Neenan representatives to discuss the plan and the reps will be at a March 5 administration team meeting to have discussions with them. The next step will be to get community input.
During his superintendent’s report, Dr. Foster spoke about school security sharing that there have been some district student internet accounts that the district has “had some issues with,” specifically a small number of students have been using the accounts the wrong way. As a result, they have been working with Sterling Police Department very closely “in regards to some problems that we’ve been experiencing,” Dr. Foster said, thanking SPD and Student Resource Officer Jordan Fleherty for their efforts.
Dennis Klein, technology di
rector, noted law enforcement has provided training for how the district can use its Goguardian and Google Workspace, along with other resources, to isolate cases where a student tries to imitate another student.
Dr. Foster told the board he will be sharing more with them as this proceeds, noting that disciplinary action may be needed.
Earlier, he gave an update on the search for a new principal for Campbell Elementary. The position has been opened for application and will remain open through March 18. Candidates will be interviewed by the selection committee March 26-28 and the board will consider approval of a candidate at their April 1 meeting.
Chanda Fleckenstein was previously approved to serve as interim principal for the remainder of the school year and at Tuesday’s meeting, the board approved the rehire of Laurie Kjosness to serve as interim assistant principal.
Other staff changes that were approved include the rehire of Karen Fleharty, Campbell longterm sub; new hires Chelsie Cowart, Sterling Middle School part-time administrative assistant, Delores Gagliardo, Campbell special education paraprofessional, Andy Mildenberger, Sterling High School head girls soccer coach, Marisol
Ramirez, Campbell sweeper, Jaelynne Steimber, Ayres Elementary teacher assistant and Kelcie Yockey, Campbell significant support needs paraprofessional; the rehire of Dawnell Nab, Hagen custodian; the transfer of Alexis Kleimola from Ayres sweeper to paraprofessional; the resignation of Kimberly Lewis Bruce, Campbell custodian; and the termination of Lori Hernandez, SHS custodian.
Additionally, Dr. Foster noted the district is currently interviewing for Smartlab teacher positions.
He also shared that he planned to continue discussions with principals on Wednesday about staffing levels for next year. The superintendent noted there are a number of long-term subs in the district, who are used to fill positions when the district can’t find someone to hire for the position. He is hoping to be able to let those individuals know sooner this year if they will be needed again next year.
Dr. Foster provided an enrollment update as well. As of Wednesday, Feb. 14, the district has a student count of 1,922, up from 1,887 in October. He is hopeful that this trend will continue next year.
Earlier in the meeting, Klein gave an update on trying to work with ENA, the district’s internet provider, to move from one to two gigs. Originally the district wanted to move to 10 gigs, which they started asking for last fall, but after some runaround, ENA told them it was unable to provide that due to long-term fixes required for ENA’S infrastructure. Instead, they offered to move the district to two gigs for now and while that was supposed to happen by the end of February, Klein has not gotten any updates from the company despite sending emails and making phone calls last week and this week.
There is a local solution that could provide two providers which would get the district through July 1, when the district’s E-rate, which helps ensure schools and libraries can obtain high-speed internet access and telecommunications at affordable rates, starts over again, but Klein still needs to talk to Dr. Foster about it. As it stands right now, the district will have to pay the full amount to have two gigs through July 1 or they will remain with one gig and have to be creative when it comes time for state testing, which RE-1 will do early this year after getting approval from the state.
“We’ll get through it but it’s going to do rough to do this,” Dr. Foster said regarding having only one gig for state testing. “It’s certainly going to take a lot of creative scheduling going on with our principals and our schools to make this work.”
The district does have its internet out for E-rate bid right now, since it does want to move to 10 gigs starting July 1 and he has already gotten interest from a Las Vegas vendor and some local providers.