Hillsboro City Schools board hears updates on spring events, summer food truck plans

The Hillsboro City Schools Board of Education heard plans for recent and upcoming end-of-school-year events, along with possible expansion of the district’s summer food service program, during their Monday, April 19 meeting.

In her report, student representative Sophie Bourne, who is a senior herself, said that Hillsboro’s seniors are “getting really excited about graduating” and looking forward to prom.

According to Bourne, the seniors’ last day of school is May 12, and they have a class trip planned at Urban Air Adventure Park in Cincinnati as well as the senior banquet.

“We have prom coming up, which is really exciting for us,” Bourne said. “I’m pretty excited for prom, and I’m excited to graduate. I’m excited to see where everyone goes. The officers have put up on our Facebook page and Instagram page the seniors and what their plans are.

“For me, it’s pretty exciting to see all my classmates get future plans ready and see where they’re going and what they’re going to accomplish. It makes me really happy to see that.”

Prom will be limited to juniors and seniors and will be held Saturday from 8-10 p.m., with after-prom from 10-midnight, according to superintendent Tim Davis. Graduation will be held May 23 at 4:30 p.m.

Board member Jerry Walker asked if early graduates were going to be walking at graduation, since there are seating restrictions. Davis said that all of the early graduates, as well as the families of two students being awarded posthumous diplomas, were invited to attend if they wanted.

“The counselors have already talked with all of them,” Davis said.

Bourne said that she thought the plan was to have “176 seats” at graduation. “If they don’t go to practice, they go to the back of the line, where they get called after, since we have to do it in alphabetical order,” she said.

Davis and several school board members also commented on the high school’s recent musical. The superintendent said the show held April 16-18 marked the first performance in the new auditorium, with cast and crew doing an “amazing job.”

According to Davis, this year’s show included selections from “The Little Mermaid,” “The Sound of Music,” “Annie” and “Mean Girls,” as well as some alumni performances from “Les Miserables.”

“They kind of broke it up a little different this year,” Davis said. “It wasn’t one main musical, so basically for COVID purposes, they broke it into four parts and kept the cast kind of separate so if somebody did come down with COVID and they had to pull one of the acts out, it wasn’t going to affect the entire show with all the hard work of everybody.”

Davis thanked Laura Jacky, Jenna Horick and Mark Holmes for their efforts. He also spoke about the technology at the new auditorium as well as the impact of seeing kids performing there for the first time.

According to Davis, they are still waiting on some speakers ordered for the auditorium, “but you’d never have known that at the performance.” They also have to do some troubleshooting on the TV screens in the hallway outside the auditorium to livestream the performances, which he said is “not up and running.” However, staff and students “did an amazing job” on the sound and lighting, as did those who performance on stage, according to superintendent.

“Having kids sing on stage, it was an absolutely amazing job,” Davis said. We have very talented kids.

“The overall atmosphere of the auditorium is just amazing, and I want to thank our community and thank the board for supporting that and going through with it. It doesn’t seem like you’re at Hillsboro High School when you’re sitting in there and you walk out the hallway.”

Board president Bill Myers said the musical was “very well-received,” and he heard comments from “several people who wanted me to share with the board how thankful they were for not only building” the auditorium. “but putting an importance on the arts.”

“I wasn’t able to go, but from the videos that I’ve seen and what I’ve heard from the cast members, it went really well,” Bourne said. “I thought it sounded really good.”

There are other performances scheduled at the new auditorium before the school year ends, Davis said, including high school and middle school choir and band concerts.

Another end-of-year update was on state testing, which Davis said began last week and will be held the next two weeks for various grade levels.

“I’ve heard nothing but positives about the kids’ work ethic on the state tests at the elementary for the first two days, and then today I heard nothing but positives about the kids working hard,” Davis said. “I’m looking forward to seeing where that is and everybody being in school this entire year.”

For an update other activities, Bourne said that the varsity spring sports teams are also “doing amazing.”

“I want to say good job to them, because they’re doing really good,” she said.

Davis also listed the following dates for senior nights for spring sports (subject to change): boys tennis, April 30; softball, May 1; boys/girls track, May 4; and baseball, May 10.

Davis said that as the district nears the end of the school year, they are seeing declines in COVID-19 cases, with “multiple days in a row” last week with zero positive cases or quarantines in the entire district. As of Monday, there were just two quarantines in the district.

“Things are going extremely well,” Davis said. “The mask-wearing and all the precautions that we’re doing — it’s just a testament to our students and staff again. We’re almost there. We’re down to 20 days of school left, and I can’t thank the parents and students and our staff for putting this year together. I’m very pleased.”

Walker also praised the schools’ administrators, employees and students as they near the finish line of the 2020-21 school year. He said that when they were planning for this year, there was a comment of “how many kids have to get sick before you cancel school or you close down because of COVID?”

“I remember at the time, myself and of course I think everybody here recognized that we wanted to put confidence in our staff and our students and our community, and we wanted to make education available across the board,” Walker said. “Now that we’re closing down within 20 days, I think I look back and say that was a good decision.

“I think the path that we followed had bumps, of course, but that’s COVID. I am appreciative that the students in our community were given the opportunity to be in school in person and to maybe meet the traditional standards of education.”

Looking ahead to this summer, during their passage of resolutions, the board approved a “summer food truck worker” classified job description for the HCS Tomahawk.

The Tomahawk food truck provides free meals for children under 18 in the Hillsboro community, regardless of income. Last year, during the pandemic, the food truck operated throughout the school’s state-mandated closure as well as their usual summer months, serving over 99,000 meals.

“With the amount of work that we’re getting, it started out with just some of our cooks and different things, and now with the magnitude of how many stops and all the stuff, we’re offering it out to other people in our district,” Davis said. “We wanted to make sure we had a job description to kind of go with it.”

Walker asked if there were plans for “expansion” of the food truck service.

“We are looking into options of purchasing a van,” Davis said. “We haven’t yet, but we’re looking at how we can get more stops in the amount of time that we have in the day.”

Davis said that Food Service Director Jessica Walker is looking into another van in order to add more rural stops. Last year, there were eight stops for the food truck, most of which were in the city limits, plus a Rocky Fork Lake location. Teeters added that Walker is “applying for state money” to help fund that potential purchase.

“We’re looking at expanding from our seven or eight stops to possibly anywhere between now eight to 12 and hitting some more rural areas,” Davis said. “The truck is going to hit all of our in-town spots, and then we are looking to expand to out in the county with the possibility of another van.

“We are very excited about that. They are actively looking.”

The board also unanimously passed the following legislation.

• The board approved three related resolutions regarding salary increases: an Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) memorandum of understanding to reflect a three-percent salary increase for the 2021-22 school year; a resolution reflecting the three-percent increase on the administrative/supervisory salary schedule; and a resolution approving the exempt classified salary to reflect the same increase.

Members of the OAPSE union include various…