The Worth County School Board hired Brian Whiteker as a full time custodian and a bus route driver at its regular board meeting Wednesday. The board also voted to extend Superintendent Chris Healy’s contract through the 2025-2026 school year. The board will do principal evaluations at next month’s meeting.
The Technology program was rated as “Excellent.” The school continues to maintain its technology hardware by purchasing and replacing Chromebooks each year and by rotating the old hardware from vocational grants into the elementary.
Vocational grant funds helped purchase one Mac computer for the Ag teacher station and one PC for the Business Teacher station, along with two color printers. Tech personnel provide timely training and response to technology problems. The district continues to be 1:1 device to student in grades 3-12, and students can take Chromebooks home. The business department provides coding courses for students. New video recorder storage was installed in 2023. Multi-factor authentication setup was set up to help with cybersecurity. The school has developed a cyber incident response plan.
The extracurricular program was rated as “Excellent.” 86% of junior high and high school students are involved in extracurricular activities. Many teams, organizations, and individuals have achieved high levels of success. New lights were installed at the football field. Concessions seating and standing areas were upgraded at the softball field. The school has gotten new track and football uniforms. The school has added a baseball cooperative with Northeast Nodaway. All coaches have been trained in CPR, AED, and First Aid as well as concussion management.
Concerns listed include the lighting at the softball field as well as the visitor seating at the football field. Choir uniforms have not been replaced since 2015, and band uniforms have not been replaced since 1995. Practice times and meetings are difficult to coordinate because of high participation rates and only one gym. There are times that four 7-12 grade teams are trying to schedule practices in one day, and there are also elementary basketball teams that want to use the gym to practice. The stage is not available for music practices during basketball practice. The multipurpose room is not adequate to function for a practice facility.
Nicki Tracy presented to the board on her Title I reading work.
Four students presented to the board requesting that the school add girls volleyball as a fall sport. The school will look into pros and cons and feasibility before February. Worth County currently offers softball, which runs during the same time as volleyball. No school in the area offers both softball and volleyball; all area schools either offer one or the other. South Holt offered both softball and volleyball for a few years, but disbanded its softball program after 2021 due to lack of numbers. The one GRC West school that offers it is St. Joseph Christian.
The one school bordering Worth County that offers volleyball is North Nodaway. If Worth County and North Nodaway were to coop in volleyball, such a move must be approved by the North Nodaway administration and School Board. If Worth County and North Nodaway were to coop in volleyball, North Nodaway could still compete as a Class 1 school. The combined enrollment for Worth County and North Nodaway is 99 students, well below the cutoff point for volleyball, which was 136 students this year.
Worth County once had a girls volleyball team, and they won a GRC title in 1950, sharing it with South Harrison with a 6-1 record. They needed to beat Maysville on their last game of the season at home to do it and they did, beating them 17-16. The Tigers fell behind 5-0 in their game with Maysville and trailed 10-5 at halftime before coming back to take a 14-12 lead. Maysville came back to knot it at 15 before Worth County scored two straight points to make it 17-15. Maysville cut it to 17-16, but time ran out before they could tie it -- back in those days, volleyball was a timed sport like football or basketball.
Team members were Helen Cottrell, Gala Mae Hunt, Marjorie Hughes, Joan Snead, Elsiemae Son (Captain), Geraldine Hamilton, Opal Harding, Chesteen King, Meredith Wilkinson, Roberta Jennings, Wilda Fletchall, Rita Hunter, Kathleen Son, Frieda Thomas, Ella Mae Shelman, Beulah Hill, Joyce Gabbert, Carmetta Maudlin, Shirley Nelson, Dorothy Jefferson, and Althae (Combs) McLain. Long-time football coach Glenn Marr coached the team.
The school received a quote from Techline Sports Lighting for new lights for the softball field. The estimated price tag is $259,000. Superintendent Chris Healy reported that safety was a concern at both the softball field and the football field, which needs improved visitor seating. He said that the district needs to be ready to move forward with improvement if the April bond issue passes. The school has not received any proposals for construction of the hallway to connect the Ag building and the main hallway.
The board authorized the Lion Electric Company to apply for the 2023 Clean School Bus Rebate Program to supply with school with electric buses. The board did the first reading of the 2024-25 calendar. Tentative start date for the upcoming school year is August 20th and the tentative final day is May 16th, 2025. The final calendar will be approved in February.
The next meeting date will be February 21st at 6 pm. The March meeting date will be March 18th at 6:30 pm.
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