School board speeds through light agenda in Fisher’s first official meeting

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The school board meeting Monday flew by so fast that there may have been a vapor trail.

The Charles City Community School District Board of Education went through a light agenda in just nine minutes, in its first meeting with Mike Fisher as superintendent.

The start time of the meeting was changed from 6 p.m. to 4 p.m. so those in attendance would have time to get to the 7 p.m. Charles City varsity substate baseball game in Waverly.

Directors Jason Walker, Scott Dight and Missy Freund were present at the meeting Monday, director Josh Mack was absent, and director Robin Macomber was present via speakerphone.

Walker welcomed Fisher aboard and Macomber said that she had heard “numerous reports of sightings” of the new superintendent from all over town. She thanked Fisher for making the effort to become a part of the community so quickly.

Fisher said that he’d been spending much of his first couple of weeks reaching out to other superintendents around the state as part of his professional learning, as well as holding several meetings locally with community stakeholders.

“I’m excited to be at my first board meeting tonight, and happy that we could adjust the time so that we could go and honor our awesome baseball players today at Waverly,” Fisher said, and added that the softball team is also in action this week, Tuesday at 3 p.m. at the state tournament in Fort Dodge.

“We encourage everyone to be there as well, and wear their Comet gear,” he said.

Fisher officially started work for the CCSD on July 1. He previously served as principal at Hoover Middle School in Waterloo and replaced Dan Cox, superintendent for five years. Cox accepted a position as chief zdministrator of the Northwest Area Education Agency, based in Sioux City.

Fisher, who grew up in Oskaloosa, was a band teacher before he became an administrator. During the public comments part of the meeting, he lauded the CCSD teachers, students and staff members who were involved with the recent community musical theatre production in Charles City.

“I’m so proud of our fine arts people — ‘The Wizard of Oz’ was a community production, by the Stony Point Players — but there was a school influence as well,” he said. “Many employees and students were part of what was a great collaborative effort by the community.”

Fisher added that he was in the pit orchestra, playing saxophone, “and I did attempt to play the flute at times.”

Once they got down to business, the board members unanimously approved meeting dates for the 2018-19 school year. Unless there are unforeseen circumstances, the board will meet at 6 p.m. on the second and fourth Monday of each month, except in March, when the board will meet the third Monday to avoid a conflict with spring break. The board also approved moving the scheduled meeting for Aug. 27 to Aug. 20, due to the availability of a workshop presenter.

In other business on Monday, the school board approved the resignation of custodian Jane Offerman effective Aug. 17, approved the resignation of Caley Johnson as junior varsity basketball coach effective Aug. 1 and approved the resignation of Wendy LaBarge as assistant volleyball coach, effective Aug. 1.

The board also revised the contract of Brooke Hottle, middle school counselor, to the amount of $43,420, from the original salary of $38,019. The board also approved the transfer for Makaila Sloter from ninth-grade volleyball coach to assistant varsity volleyball coach.

The board formally approved the bus driver contracts, approved the cooperative teacher education agreement with the Iowa State University, approved the mentoring support agreement with the School Administrators of Iowa for new administrators Mike Fisher, Bryan Jurrens and Tom Harskamp, and approved the contract with Avalon Center to provide counselor services at the elementary buildings.