Just a week after the Jan. 19 resignation of Superintendent of Schools Mike McMillan, an interim had been contracted to begin work. Dr. Jerre Doss, Ed.D, began learning the ropes with McMillan’s assistance on Friday, Jan. 27. McMillan’s last day in employ of the Delta County School District will be Feb. 10.
Dr. Doss has been hired for a two-week period, for which he will be paid $5,000. This will give him the chance to become familiar with the district, and with the staff to get acquainted with him, said Bill Carlquist, personnel co-director. The decision to hire was the result of a special board meeting held Jan. 27.
If the two-week trial period is successful, the board will enter negotiations with Dr. Doss to fill the interim position. The board expects to present a contract to him at a special meeting on Monday, Feb. 7. That meeting will be an executive session, and will be immediately followed by an open meeting with all principals and directors for budget negotiations.
The board met with representatives with the Colorado Association of School Boards on Thursday and Friday, Jan. 26-27. Those representatives made some recommendations of people willing to serve as an interim superintdent. Board members also had two potential candidates. The board met with and interviewed two candidates, Dr. Doss and Charles Grove from Wyoming, on Friday morning.
Dr. Doss was selected, said board president Tom Mingen, because he has a history of going into “difficult situations and pulling an organization together.” A native of Delta, Doss was a teacher and principal in several Colorado schools, served as superintendent in Springfield and Limon and interim superintendent in Deer Trail. Additionally, Dr. Doss served as the town manager for a time for the Town of Cedaredge and the Town of Orchard City.
Mingen said the expectation of Doss would be to help the district prepare a budget and work with staff with the new curriculum implementation. “He will have to really pull the district together, make sure that the district has a direction going forward,” Mingen said.
“He’s a good school man,” McMillan said last Friday. “He’s had a lot of experience. He’s a good school hand and knows some of the pressures that come to a district. I’m optimistic”
The board voted to hire CASB to conduct the superintendent search, which is estimated to cost $12,000 plus expenses. That search will be conducted nationally. Mingen said Doss has no interest in applying for permanent employment with the district.
The board and the representatives from CASB conducting the search plan to hold some focus meetings throughout the district in an effort to get input and information from staff and community members before launching the search.
Mingen said, “The board is excited about working with CASB on the search. We are going to structure the process so we get the maximum amount of input from the community and staff, so we can arrive at the best possible decisions.”
An interview team will be developed, made up of both staff and community members, to interview the pool of applicants. Special training sessions will be offered to help those on that team learn how to interview employee candidates. Once the pool is narrowed, the board will host a meet-and-greet for the candidates before making the final selection. That decision is expected to come in May.
School Board Roundup
At its Jan. 19 meeting, the Delta County School Board dealt with the following:
- Paonia Elementary School has been awarded the Distinguished Improvement Award from the Colorado Department of Education
- North Fork Community Montessori School has been awarded for the John Irwin School of Excellence Award
- Garnet Mesa Elementary School has been nominated as one of five schools in the state for the Blue Ribbon Award
- Lisa Mock, coordinator for the Backpack program, Delaine Hudson, principal of Delta Opportunity School and Bill Carlquist, personnel co-director, recognized the El Pomar Foundation and Delta County Health and Human Services for support of the programs. El Pomar recently gave the Backpack program $30,000. Health and Human Services gave $100,000 to the Backpack program and $171,000 to the Delta Opportunity School. Betsey Marsten, a board member of El Pomar, and Debbie Melgoza and Leoné Anderson from Health and Human Services were at the meeting, and were recognized and given plaques.
- The Delta Montrose Technical College has been recognized on a state level for 100 percent pass rates by cosmetology, nursing and law enforcement students on state-level qualifying tests.
- Scott Siettmann, a teacher at Delta High School, addressed the board and asked that teacher salaries, which have been frozen for the past three years due to budget restraints, be retroactively reinstated. He told the board that the district did not seem to be suffering as much as anticipated due to the budget cuts over the past several years, and that staff has borne the greatest burden by higher insurance costs, extra workload and salary freezes. “Staff is not the priority of this district,” he said. “It’s time to start treating staff as an investment.”
- The board voted to retain exclusive chartering authority.
- Superintendent Mike McMillan presented statistical data from the Colorado School Finance Project, which surveyed school districts across the state to see how budget cuts are being dealt with. He reported that 70 percent of reporting districts have reduced their reserves; 15 percent have implemented furlough days; 95 percent have reduced pay and/or not increased compensation for one or more years; 15 percent have moved to four-day school weeks; and 85 percent have increased class sizes, combined grades or eliminated programs in the last three years.
McMillan added that at this current time, the district is looking at a reduction in state funding at about $700,000. The final amount will likely be different, however, and that will come in March. The board briefly discussed budget strategies, but decided to table further budget discussions until next month.
- The board also put in place a new policy. In an effort to “strengthen internal controls” board member Pete Blair will now oversee all outgoing accounts payable and will review all checks written before they are mailed out by staff in the finance department. All expenditures will still be gone over and approved at each monthly school board meeting.
