By Dennis Morgan
Co-Publisher
Meeting last week, the District #18 Board of Education did what voters could not do last month — they filled two seats on the board.
Weeks ago, Board President Steve Busteed announced that he had found two persons, Luke Hinkle and Eric Beckman, who were willing to serve. On Wednesday night, the school board approved Busteed’s selections. They will fill seats on the board previously held by Stan Heithoff and Doug Jones who chose not to seek re-election (see separate story).
Later in the meeting, the board took action on a contract for Superintendent Mike Brockhaus.
Hired in July, Brockhaus has been on the job for six months and, last month, received a positive job evaluation from the board. Busteed said the negotiations committee recently met and decided to give Brockhaus a one-percent increase for the 2021/22 school year. When hired, the superintendent was given a two-year contract.
The other big news coming from the board meeting, attended by all six board members, involved early retirement applications.
As has been the case in recent years, the school district has offered early retirement to teachers who meet the requirements per school policy. Three teachers are eligible this year.
The board decided to offer two early retirement packages (the same number as one year ago). The deadline for applying is early 2021.
In other action:
Cheerleaders — K-12 Principal Greg Wemhoff said the future for cheerleaders for Wolfpack activities will be evaluated annually. After a Wolfpack committee meeting was held, he said the consensus was there must be a minimum of four cheerleaders for there to be cheerleaders.
“We’re going to look at it on a year-by-year basis,” Wemhoff said.
Accepted — The annual audit was accepted by the board. Brockhaus said the audit firm told him it was one of the easier audits to perform due to the record keeping done at EPS.
Holiday tournament — The Wolfpack boys and girls basketball teams are scheduled to play again in the Madison Holiday Basketball Tournament which will be held Dec. 28-29. Tournament brackets and times can be found on Page 11.
Maintenance — Approved was a new three year heating/AC maintenance contract ranging from just over $6,650 the first year to slightly more than $7,000 for the third year.
Next meeting — The January regular meeting of the school board will be January 13
