New Philadelphia City board approves retirements, hires, 2025-26 calendar and CCP agreements; OKs band trip and OHSAA membership

The New Philadelphia City Board of Education on an unanimous voice and roll-call vote approved personnel changes, district policy updates, college-credit partnerships, the 2025–26 calendar and authorization for the high school and middle school to remain OHSAA members. The board also approved a nonroutine marching-band trip to Walt Disney World scheduled for March 2026.

Board members moved through a packet of items the board listed as personnel, appointments and superintendent support during the meeting. The personnel package included three retirements, several resignations, new hires for the 2025–26 school year, corrections to pay classifications, spring supplemental coaching assignments and approvals for substitutes, volunteers, Kent State student teachers and CBI students working and being paid during the school day.

The retirements approved were Lois Watson, identified in board remarks as a longtime East Elementary school secretary; Erica Andrews, who was noted as retiring at the end of next October; and Karen Merkel, a family and consumer sciences teacher at New Philadelphia High School, whose retirement was set for Jan. 16, 2026. The board approved the hiring of Tim Fortney as a sixth-grade math teacher at Weldy Middle School and approved Carla…