Madison District hires staff to address tech deficiencies
By Audra Quinn
C & G Staff Writer
Madison District Board of Education members approved the hire of a new full-time technology supervisor to help get the district’s Web site, which has been out of order for as long as six months, and the community television channel which has been blank for several weeks, back in working order as an important communicative tool for the district.
The staff member, once hired, will receive $35,000 to $40,000 a year, plus benefits, which Human Resource Director Georgia Nadius roughly estimates at $12,000 for full-family coverage. This is a considerable savings to the $80,000 the district spent last year on temporary contract employees hired for each individual maintenance job, Nadius says.
“In the past, we’ve had people, not even being on staff, drive over, make the repairs on a will-call basis, so it’s been handled, but obviously at a little bit of a premium,” she said.
The technical supervisor’s role will be primarily to address the inoperative Web site and cable channel. Secondly, he or she will train students to maintain those services, and ultimately, the employee will implement Superintendent William Harrison’s vision for a technologically enhanced district.
“I think our system is antiquated, and we need to improve it,” Harrison said. “Technology is a tool. Certainly the real learning occurs between the classroom teacher and the student, but I believe the opportunities for assisting learning for both students and teachers just gets accented with the use of good technology that’s supported by the school district.”
At that same meeting, Curriculum Director Diane McCord submitted her request for retirement as of Dec. 31, 2005, which is another source of concern for school board members.
“I have some concerns about losing Diane while our [Annual Yearly Progress results] are down. We can’t keep you here but it does lend to concern that we’re kind of in, I don’t want to use the word crisis, but in a situation that really wholeheartedly needs to be addressed,” said Vice President Cindy Holder.
Nadius assured the board that the curriculum director position would be filled in advance to McCord’s departure.
At a special meeting held Aug. 8, the board approved the hiring of Bob Crowell as Community High School principal and Gail Harding as gingerbread coordinator. Vacancies still exist for the positions of halftime high school counselor, community high school math, community high school technical education, and several paraprofessional positions.
In addition to the issue of filling and shifting positions, members of the Madison District School Board also addressed the district’s growing deficit at the Aug. 1 meeting. Five out of six members voted in favor of taking out a loan of up to $6.6 million to finance the upcoming fiscal year. $6 million accounts for the deficit accrued by the district, the additional 600,000 represents the interest rate, Harrison says.
“I just want to know when this is going to stop? How do we get out? It’s ridiculous,” said Trustee Ken Melchert, who cast the lone dissenting vote.
In response to his concerns, Harrison said, “One of the things that we have to do is we have to reduce the deficit because part of the problem is we are still expending more money than we are taking in. Consequently that adds to this $6.6 million. If we start reducing this deficit, then we can apply more of that to the loan. That’s the challenge that we have.”