By Blythe Alspaugh
TIPP CITY — A new president and vice president were elected at the Tipp City Board of Education’s organizational meeting, held Monday night.
Simon Patry was elected president in a 3-2 vote with board members Anne Zakkour and Theresa Dunaway voting against the motion.
Newly elected board member Richard Mains was elected vice president in a 3-1-1 vote, with Dunaway voting against the motion and Zakkour abstaining from the vote.
The board also unanimously approved the 2022 meeting schedule, which included both regular board meetings and work sessions.
Patry made a motion to modify the schedule by removing work sessions taking place on Feb. 8, April 12, June 14 and Aug. 19, stating that he thought the work sessions lacked productivity and that they were happening too frequently, and that it was causing the board to lose sight of what was important.
Dunaway and Zakkour said that it would be better to keep the work sessions on the schedule so that everyone would be able to make the meetings if necessary, and that any work session could be canceled if there was nothing pressing to discuss.
It was also brought up that work sessions give board members the opportunity to discuss certain items that will show up as action items in regular board meetings, and can prevent regular meetings from stretching to three or four hours long at a time. Superintendent Mark Stefanik also added that there have been requests to have presentations from different departments at work sessions, so as not to add on to regular meeting time.
The motion ultimately failed unanimously, with Patry saying that he liked the idea of having the work session dates reserved and canceling those meetings if they weren’t needed.
Several members were assigned to committees for 2022 at Monday’s meeting in a unanimous vote:
• Patry and Mains were assigned to the Strategic Planning Committee;
• Patry and Mains were assigned to the Facilities, Grounds and Safety Committee;
• Zakkour and Amber Drum were assigned to Board of Education Policies Committee;
• Dunaway and Drum were assigned as the Student Achievement Liasions;
• Patry was assigned to Personnell and Contract Negotiations;
• Mains and Patry were assigned to the Finance and Audit Committee;
• Zakkour and Dunaway were assigned to the Communications Committee;
• Drum was assigned to the Business Advisory Council;
• Drum and Dunaway were assigned to the Athletic Council;
• Patry was assigned to the Tipp City Economic Development Committee;
• Patry was assigned to Tipp-Monroe Community Services;
• Drum was assigned to the Tippecanoe Educational Endowment; and
• Dunaway was assigned to the Park Advisory Board.
The board decided to disband the Tipp City Public Libraries Committee, instead favoring allowing two board members to volunteer at will if the Tipp City Library Trustees needed representatives present from the board of education at meetings or interviews.
The next regular meeting of the Tipp City BOE will be held Monday, Jan. 24 at 6 p.m. A work session will be held Tuesday, Jan. 11 at 5 p.m.
