The WSISD Board of Trustees met in regular session May 16. Their agenda was extensive.

The first agenda item was the swearing in of trustees Zach Hall, Sharon Byley and Tracee Collins. All three had run unopposed in the May election. The board then appointed board officers, with Collins getting the position of Vice-President and Kim Rhame the position of Secretary. It was a tie vote between Lisa Lane and Michael McClelland for board president.

Superintendent Dr. Carnelius Gilder next presented the monthly superintendent’s report and he started with a list of continuing education hours obtained by board members. He then yielded the floor to High School principal Clark Barnett who said in his monthly report, “First off there’s good news, our ADA (average daily attendance)is up four points from what it was before. Enrollment is holding the same as it has been for the last several months.”

Middle school principal Jessica Wallace was next and in her report she stated, “Our sixth, seventh and eighth grade STARR testing is complete. Our A honor roll incentive this six weeks, a ticket to Splash Kingdom, ended up with 17 kids receiving tickets.” Kena McClenny, elementary principal, was next with her monthly report. She said, “Our enrollment is at 276 with our ADA up to 93.58 percent. We are gradually improving. Our STARR testing is complete as well, and we hope to hear results by Monday (May 23).”Gilder went on to state that the school should soon be receiving the school bus they recently purchased.

The board would next approve the minutes of the previous meeting and also the list of substitutes. The next item was the school’s financial report during which Gilder would state, “We ended the month of April with 62.91 percent of the budget expended. Our revenue for April was $467,837 and year-to-date revenue, $5,841,906. Our expenditures for the month of April were $606,244 and the year to date total is $5,923,486.” He continued, “As of now we are looking at a difference in projected total revenue to projected total expenditures of $303,065, but as we all know those numbers have to settle. We had 276 students at elementary, ten over our projected number. We have 125 students in Middle School, seven over the projected number, and 156 in grades 9-12, which was seven kids under our projection.”

The board would next decide to renew the contract of Kailie Cupin, the school’s district 12 representative. The board renewed said contract unanimously. The board then decided to give the school’s paraprofessionals a 7.5 percent raise, which passed unanimously. The board next went into executive session and after an extensive session they emerged having renewed the contract of Carnelius Gilder until 2025.