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By Craig Moorhead
Special for the Argus
A new middle/high school principal was hired at the May 18 meeting of the ISD #299 school board.
Current principal Ronald Helmers will be retiring at the end of the school year.
The board voted unanimously to hire Paul DeMorett, who currently serves as K-12 principal at Tower-Soudan School in St. Louis County (near Vermilion Lake). DeMoret’s contract is for the 2009-2010 school year at a salary of $85,000.
DeMorett was chosen from a field of 27 applicants. He was recommended by an interview committee that consisted of three school board members, two teachers, Elementary Principal Connie Hesse, Community Education Director Nancy Runningen, a high school counselor, and Superintendent Michael Moriarty.
Other hires
Directors also voted to hire Chris Jandt as head coach of the boy’s soccer team. Jandt will assume his duties at the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year.
Finally, Mellonie Roesler-Begalke was hired as a Hand-in-Hand preschool teacher, also beginning at the start of the 2009-2010 school year.
Staffing cuts
The board voted to cut the hours of three non-tenured teachers. Elementary special education teacher Laura Eglinton’s part time hours were cut entirely. Social studies teacher Jason Cognac was cut from .92 FTE to .50 FTE. High school science teacher Brad Church was reduced from 1.0 FTE to .50 FTE.
Support staff layoffs were also approved. These cuts, “on the basis of seniority,” included six employees, effective at the end of this school year. These jobs include special education assistants, cooks and janitors. Moriarty explained that the cuts were originally approved by the board at a strategic planning session last December.
For the complete story, see the May 27 issue of the Caledonia Argus.
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