By Amantha Garpiel
For Miami Valley Sunday News
TIPP CITY – The Tipp City Board of Education accepted two donations and a grant, approved a payment in lieu of agreement, discussed athletic game workers for the school district and the ongoing district building projects.
During the board’s regular session meeting on Monday, July 24, the donations accepted are from the Tippecanoe Athletic Boosters and the Tipp Foundation. The Tippecanoe Athletic Boosters donated a total of $11,500 for the Athletic Departments HUDl fees. The Tipp Foundation donated $5,977.87. A total of $599 of the foundation’s donation is for Heather Ker at LT Ball Intermediate School for a new large portable green screen. The remaining $5,378.87 is for Amy Grescowle at LT Ball Intermediate School for creating Makerspaces. Both donations were approved unanimously to be accepted by the district.
The grant approved Monday evening for acceptance comes from the Ohio Academy of Science. This grant was accepted to provide payment for staff members who participated in the after-school STEM program from Oct. 2022 to May 2023.
The grant is for a total of $10,000 and is being evenly split, $2,000 each, between the five staff members who participated. The staff members being compensated by the grant funds are Heather Bledsoe, April Taylor, Mackenzie English, Annette Malott and Molly Horne.
The board then approved an updated payment in lieu of agreement for classified staff members. The updated agreement is for the 2023-2024 school year and states that regular, full-time classified employees hired before July 1, 2000 will receive a cash payment of $1,080 and may choose to have the money applied directly to medical insurance as additional Board participation in medical insurance premiums to provide tax advantage or staff can choose to receive the amount as a cash payment through payroll without the SERS deductions.
Then, the board approved a list of athletic game workers for the 2023-2024 school year. Before approving the list, Board member Theresa Dunaway raised a few questions regarding policies for the game workers such as dealing with inebriated patrons or how to properly represent the district and if the employees working the games are being trained on these subjects and more. She also noted that she believes the game workers should wear name tags to be easily identified for praise or complaints by patrons.
Lastly, Superintendent Aaron Moran led a discussion regarding the Tipp City School District’s OFCC Master Building Plan. During the discussion, Moran mentioned two possible plans he believes would work best for the district based on the OFCC recommendations and the feedback from the district.
The first plan includes a new kindergarten through sixth-grade building and updated to the high school which, in this plan, will be used for seventh through 12th grades. The second plan includes a kindergarten through eighth-grade building and various renovations and upgrades to the high school. With this second plan, the kindergarten through eighth-grade building would be located at the Hyatt site depending on the outcome of a traffic study.
Along with determining which master plan the district should proceed with, the board and facilities committee are looking at potentially building new maintenance building and bus garage on the land near the high school. They also plan to keep LT Ball Intermediate for the use of the gym and to potentially be the future location for the Board of Education.
Either plan, according to Moran, will cost around $90 million with the OFCC covering $30 million.
The writer is a regular contributor to Miami Valley Sunday News.
