By Marissa Winkel, For Spring Hill Schools

The Spring Hill Schools Board of Education met June 10, 2024 at the District Administrative Center to discuss several items. The following are important highlights from the meeting:

Good News, Recognitions, & Announcements

This month’s What’s Going Well video showcases the daily moments of excellence that happened in Spring Hill Elementary.

Dr. Link Luttrell, superintendent, gave several shoutouts to high school athletes that made exemplary achievements toward the end of this last academic year. The varsity softball and baseball teams made great achievements. “Both teams advanced to the state tournament in Wichita, Kansas. The varsity boys ended up in second place in a very tough, hard-fought game; the varsity girls finished in third place,” Luttrell said. Luttrell highlighted several other successes and records those teams hit in the last year. Luttrell also gave a shout-out to the state track team; numerous track athletes also qualified for state. One student, Margo Todd, was state champion for discus. “A lot of students represented USD 230 very well at the end of the school year.”

Action Items

Last month, Tristan Bartley, Spring Hill Band instructor, requested the purchase of new band uniforms as the current band uniforms used by high schoolers are due for replacement. During this meeting, no updates, outside of an increase of uniforms requested for purchase, were made. The purchase has been approved and will be put into action for fall 2025.

Discussion Items

B.J. Harris, Spring Hill Education Foundation (SHEF) coordinator, presented a review of the 2024 Golf Tournament to the Board. “Spring Hill Education Foundation is very instrumental in supporting a lot of initiatives within the district for our teachers as well as the awarding of scholarships every year. They also recently underwent some restructuring in the foundation in terms of the leadership, and that leadership has been in place for about six months,” Luttrell said. The 2024 Golf Tournament “is one of the primary fundraisers the foundation engages in”. Harris stated that 137 players were put on the course and $22,000 in scholarships were given. “I think we need to look at raising more money for scholarships, we’ve  got more kids. We had 38 kids apply; we gave out 11. Certainly way more than 11 were qualified,” Harris said. Harris and the Board discussed that SHEF is looking to find more options for developing the golf committee and ways to raise money for scholarships and other contributions to make this organization continue to happen. Harris said the committee has lots of room to grow and encourages that the community continues to have involvement and support with this organization.

Clay Frigon, SHHS Assistant Principal/Athletic Director, provided an overview of the request for a new scorer’s table for the high school’s main gym. The current scorer’s table has been used in the high school’s main gym since 2007, and is continued to be used for all of the events in the gym. The new scorer’s table  presented will add new enhancements, potentially bettering positive atmospheres taking place during the main gym’s events. This scorer will present digital visualizations which could represent players during lineups, and could even have the potentiality of advertising USD 230’s corporate sponsors. This new equipment will provide lots of capability, and could not only represent the district’s different programs, but could also allow for more student involvement in creating digital visualizations for the events. This proposal will be negotiated and presented at the next meeting for approval consideration.

Kyley Delphia, Director of Facilities, presented information on the district’s fees for facility use. This is an annual process done to update fee amounts charged to users of the facilities on school properties. For example, these fees could apply to Spring Hill Rec Center using USD 230’s football or other types of fields for sport practices. Delphia and the Board plan to come together for further discussion and consideration on the variety of situations applied for different types of fees and policies for those fees given for different circumstances. Discussion was also made on obtaining the adequate personnel for supervision of the facility usage. The considerations will be considered for approval during a future meeting.

“Annually, it is important that we make sure we have adequate coverage for property liability, especially with all of our facilities as well as workers [compensation] rates.” As industry rates in the economy continue to evolve, new rates will come into effect for the fiscal year. Jay Hastert, with Elliott Insurance, provided an overview of the 2024-2025 renewal for both property/casualty and workers compensation rates. This is an annual review conducted and takes into effect by July 1st of each year. Hastert noted that they are still working on finding ways to strengthen the coverage presented, which will be brought up for further discussion. Discussions took place regarding the challenges of experiencing inflation and being under a “hard market” industry, as Hastert provided more details. Deductible amounts were found to experience large increases for each of the district’s facilities due to economic inflation and high conditions of bad weather. Further discussion will be made on the updates, and will be brought to approval consideration at a future meeting.

The complete agenda and presented information are available by visiting BoardDocs.
The complete meeting recording is available by visiting the Spring Hill Schools YouTube channel.