The Greene County School Board conducted its first meeting last night.

After the new board members were sworn into office, there were several appointments approved by the new Board.  Current Jefferson-Scranton school board president Sam Harding was appointed as president and  Ashley Johnston was appointed as vice-president of the Greene County school board.  Jefferson-Scranton Superintendent Tim Christensen was appointed as acting Greene County Superintendent and Brenda Muir was appointed acting secretary.

Next, future meetings are going to be on the second Wednesday of every month following the Jefferson-Scranton school board work session.  It will start at 6:30pm at the South Grade Building in Jefferson from now until the end of this school year.

The Board then approved the transitions of seats for elections for 2015-2019 from a seven person board to a five person board.  It was decided that for 2015’s election, Ashley Johnston and Jeff Lamoureux’s seats would be up for election.  In 2017, it would be Teresa Hagen, Susan Burkett and David Ohrt’s seats and in 2019 there would be four people running for two seats to make it a five person board.  Those seats would be Mark Peters, Sam Hardin, Johnston and Lamoureux again.

Other important discussion topics were the use of the Rippey gym.  Greene County High School Athletic Director David Waskow recommended that they utilize Rippey’s gym more often because, in his opinion, it is the best competitive gym in the district.  The recommended cost to make necessary changes to heat the building and replace the boiler system would be about $100,000.

Another important topic was about class sizes and teacher positions.  The Board ultimately decided to recommend to each of their separate school boards to have East Greene third and fourth graders combine into one section and have that extra teacher in one classroom for that extra section.