The Boyer Valley Community School District has taken the next step in finding a new Superintendent/Middle School High School Principal. In a packed community room at the high school Monday night, the board heard from several members of the audience during the open forum to voice their disapproval of the recent board vote to combine the principal and superintendent jobs into one.

Twenty five people were in attendance. Elizabeth Heistand, a recently elected board member, told the audience the board decided in an agreement to approve the motion at their last board meeting. Of the concerns from the crowd, trust was an issue as was the lack of research done by the board. Board member Steve Puck agreed. “We should have discussed the ideas of how we are going to cover it, who’s going to do what. That all should be part of our decision and we never did.”

Chairman Bud Dunham differed in opinion by stating the board had talked about merging the jobs several times and no one mentioned other solutions. Trisha Roberts, a concerned citizen told the board she would like to see the board rescind their vote from last month. “I personally would like to see more exhaustive research done. And if it ends up being the same decision, fine. But I don’t feel like all the plans and different options were completely exhausted for such a major decision be made. I would like to see the board reconsider their vote from last month and do that research and come up with a plan and then comeback and say yes this is the plan and this is the way to go.”

Dunham mentioned 51 other schools in the state of Iowa have a shared position of Superintendent/HS Principal at the moment. Later in the meeting, the board did move forward with the plans to find a new Superintendent/MSHS Principal by hiring long time Harlan Community Superintendent Bob Broomfield as a consultant to help the school district hire the shared position. The fee for Broomfield is $7,000.

In other business, the Boyer Valley School board heard from head football coach Jay Peterson on the topic of the school’s baseball program. Last year, the district shared baseball with Woodbine. Coach Peterson said the original plan a week ago was to disband baseball from the district altogether but now believed that was not a good idea. “I think we will have enough kids here to maintain a baseball program successfully without scraping by and keep that in house without sharing equipment. It is something I would be interested in doing with that job were available.”

Peterson went on to say he had spoken to kids informally and had a rough estimate of 16 to 19 kids who would go out for baseball if it were offered in the summer. Last season with Woodbine, only 5 to 7 kids went out according to Athletic Director Ernie Klein. The board agreed and a formal motion will be brought to the board at their February meeting.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)