Johnson County board elects Chad Gruber as vice chair; approves curriculum, counseling and Medicaid-billing contracts

The Johnson County Board of Education on June 10 elected Chad Gruber as vice chair and approved a slate of routine contracts and memberships for the 2025–26 fiscal year.

The board nominated and approved Chad Gruber for vice chair by roll call. The motion carried unanimously with the following recorded votes: Miss Brown — yes; Mister Graeber — yes; Mister Robinson — yes; Mister Walker — yes; Mister Long — yes.

The board voted to approve several items that were presented as part of the meeting’s consent and action agenda. The approvals included: payment of TSSD membership dues (Johnson County’s share reported as $24.06 for the period noted); a three-year contract with CodeHS to provide computer science curriculum for Johnson County High School (JCHS) and Johnson County Middle School (JCMS); a memorandum of understanding with Frontier Health to provide three school-based behavioral health counselors (one serving The Hill middle and high schools, one serving Doe, and one serving Round Creek); and an agreement with a vendor described in the packet to provide administrative and billing services for the school nursing Medicaid reimbursement program.

Administrators said the CodeHS contract continues the curriculum teachers used the previous year and that a three-year agreement produced a better price. The CodeHS contract was described as already budgeted for the coming year.

The Frontier Health MOU was described as an annual arrangement that provides three counselors to the district; the board was told there is no fee for this MOU. The Medicaid-billing agreement was presented as a continuation of a program the district has used to recover a portion of school nursing costs for students covered by Medicaid/Medicare (examples given included catheter changes and insulin administration). The vendor name appears in the packet as both “Stellar Fairway Services, LLC” and later as “Stellar Therapy Services”; the board approved the vendor agreement as presented in the packet for the 2025–26 fiscal year.

All of these items were approved by unanimous roll call votes. Where roll-call names were captured, the recorded votes matched the vice-chair election: Miss Brown — yes; Mister Graeber — yes; Mister Robinson — yes; Mister Walker — yes; Mister Long — yes.

No dissenting votes or motions to table these items were recorded in the meeting transcript.

Ending: The board’s next regular meeting is scheduled for the second Thursday of the month in the 2025–26 year, with an exception noted for November during the TSBA conference; meeting locations and other upcoming administrative items were announced at the end of the session.