The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

Board members and staff said goodbye to Director Michelle Budd LoBue at her final Wahkiakum School District Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday June 23. LoBue, who married recently, is relocating to Louisiana.

“It’s been awesome and we always hate to lose quality school board members so we’re going to miss you a bunch,” Superintendent Bob Garrett said. “We love you, thank you very much for your service.”

Before she left, Michelle approved several items along with the other board members.

The Natural Resources Class and the Robotics Class will now be accepted as lab science credits and the Ag Mechanics Class will be be accepted as a fine art credit. An old portable classroom at the high school was approved for removal and because Maintenance Supervisor Mike Wright was still waiting to hear a firm number on the project, the board set a limit on the cost.

After much discussion, the board approved a location identifier system for the new phone system that will be installed as the school improves security around campus. The location identifier system will cost the school $3,100 a year.

According to Garrett, a timber company would like access to the farm forest in order to reach property that they plan to log. Garrett asked Attorney Dan Bigelow to draw up a document for the easement.

“Their attorney suggested maybe 30 changes to the document. They would like this to happen quickly,” Garrett said. “Nothing happens quickly when you want 30 changes.”

In the meantime, he wanted to know if the school board wanted to allow access.

“I want to see the document,” Schubert said. “When the town used a portion of the road to build their facility we had to have a special walking path developed. I want to make sure any easement we give to anybody meets those standards if not higher.”

The matter was tabled for the next meeting.

Garrett reported that the folding chairs at the high school were in bad shape.

“We’ve had some people have the chairs collapse beneath them,” Garrett said. “We need to dispose of them and replace them. It’s way past time.”

Because ASB funds have been dwindling, the student government voted to raise ASB fees. An ASB card at the high school will now cost $40 and a card at the middle school has been raised to $15. The cards allow students to participate in sports and gives them admission to games at their school.

Parent Heidi Heywood, who was attending the meeting, spoke.

“I wanted to say thank you to our board members,” Heywood said. “I wanted to thank school staff and in particular the leadership at our high school for what I see as a sea of change in the high school experience since my daughters have been enrolled here. When the eldest was about to enroll, my husband and I walked out of a school board meeting really frustrated wondering how we were going to manage to drive from Skamokawa over the hill to meet the bus to get to Naselle to get our daughter to a decent school that would be meeting her needs.

“In the last three years I have seen a remarkable change at Wahkiakum High School,” she continued, “in terms of a renewed academic emphasis and opportunities to give our students more meaningful learning experiences like starting Honor Society up again and course offerings that have been a huge sacrifice for our administration and staff to make available to our students.”

After a closed executive session, administrative contracts were approved for the 2015-2016 year. Garrett will be compensated $78,354 and both principals, Stephanie Leitz and Theresa Libby will receive $85,767.