A new hire recommendation passed by a split vote by the Clintonville School Board.
Board member Pat Schley questioned the hiring process and eventually voted against the recommendation, while board member Tom Neely abstained due to family reasons.
Schley said the board received a letter at the beginning of the meeting from a person connected to the hiring process, explaining her situation.
“Whoever gave that letter to us, I don’t think would know what was in it because it was all sealed,” said Schley, who spoke with the County Post East several days after the meeting. “I had correspondence from a couple other people who were concerned, so that’s why I addressed it at the meeting.”
Schley questioned whether or not it was a good thing to hire someone with no experience working for the school district for the position, when several internal candidates also applied for the position.
“If we have someone within the district’s employ – whom co-workers are very happy with and think that person could fill the position – then why do we need to go looking for someone else? I don’t know the other person that is involved in this situation, and I’m not saying who is more qualified or who is the better person – that’s not my thing. The thing is just the process.
“This is something we have to consider, because more of this will be happening in the future. The board will have more say, since there will not be contracts for our support staff, and eventually for our teachers,” continued Schley.
Rexford-Longfellow Elementary School Principal Kris Straumann also spoke to the County Post East after the meeting. She said she interviewed 42 applicants for the position. Of those, five were external.
“We had a lot of applicants for this support staff position,” Straumann explained. “There were several internal applicants. We had them sub in the position for one day so that they could try it out, and we could try them out.
“We had a very large selection pool, and the final decision was very tough,” Straumann said. “We deliberated longer on who we should hire than we did on conducting the 30-minute interviews.”
The school board approved the hire of Amanda (Tauferner) Hill as a library assistant in the Rexford-Longfellow IMC, effective Nov. 27, by a 5-1-1 vote at their meeting on Monday, Nov. 25. Schley voted no, and Neely abstained. Neely said he abstained because his daughter had married into the Hill/Tauferner family and didn’t want his vote to fall within the realm of a conflict of interest.
After the meeting, Schley spoke with Straumann.
“I was satisfied with the conversation,” said Schley. “I wasn’t in on the interviews, so it is up to the people who were doing the interviewing to make a recommendation.”
“Our conversation after the meeting was fine,” said Straumann. “I just wish people would check with sources before they bring up issues.”
At their meeting on Monday, Dec. 10, the board voted 6-0-1 in favor of changing Hill’s hours from 7 hours per day to 7.5 hours per day. Neely abstained.