Elyria City Schools board approves paving, phone system, payroll items; recognizes athletes, robotics and Special Olympics

The Elyria City Schools Board of Education on April 16 approved a slate of treasurer and superintendent action items — including contracts for asphalt and concrete work, a phone-system hardware and installation purchase not to exceed $300,000, graduation lists and multiple personnel appointments — and began the meeting with recognitions for athletics, robotics and Special Olympics teams.

Recognitions: The board held an extended recognitions segment before routine business. Matt Sawerca, the district’s middle-school athletic director, called up coaches and players from the boys basketball team and praised coaches Kyle Raspert and Tavon Kurtz. A coach told the board the team won the Southwestern Conference (SWC) championship and finished the season “eighteen‑zero.” The board also acknowledged robotics teams that won state-level awards: Mike West described four program tracks (elementary, middle school 7–8, VRC eighth‑grade division and high school) and identified a state-championship middle-school team, rostered as “44113 T,” called the Fantastic 4. The district’s Special Olympics volunteers and athletes were recognized; coaches and volunteers noted athletes’ medals and first-place finishes, including Aaron Daniels in a 100‑meter race and Evan Miller in a mini javelin event.

Treasurer items and votes: The board voted to accept the financial report for March 2025 and two donations: one from the Ohio Beef Council (amount not specified) and a $500 donation from Jerry and Cynthia Westfall earmarked for the district clothing closet. The motion passed on a roll call with board members recorded as voting yes. The board also appointed two members as primary representatives and the remaining three as alternates for an expulsion hearing scheduled for a Wednesday in May at 4 p.m.; the primary representatives named at the meeting were Annie (first name used at the meeting) and Mike (first name used at the meeting). The roll-call votes on these treasurer items were recorded as unanimous.

Superintendent items and votes: Superintendent Anne Schloss presented several items that the board approved by roll-call vote. The board approved a state‑bid asphalt and concrete paving purchase with a contractor identified in the meeting as a state bid vendor for summer work on district roads and parking lots. The board approved purchase and installation of new phone-system hardware from vendor CDW Government (CDWG) not to exceed $300,000. Other approved superintendent items included approval of a home-instruction tutor list and approval of a settlement agreement with district support staff (described in the meeting as a settlement with Elyria support staff). All superintendent action items were approved on recorded roll-call votes.

Graduation and personnel: The board approved two graduation lists — an early-college graduation list for Elyria City Schools’ early-college program and a senior graduation list for Elyria High School (the superintendent said the high-school list includes 406 seniors). The board approved multiple personnel items, including the appointment of Amanda Belcher as assistant principal at Elyria High School (Belcher was introduced at the meeting and described as an Elyria High graduate with 18 years’ teaching experience in the district). The board also approved retirements and resignations listed by the superintendent, including the 27‑year retirement of Carrie Kaminski (grade 5, Northwood) and other classified staff retirements and resignations; the meeting record lists supplemental contracts, leaves of absence and additional certified and classified appointments. The personnel items were approved by roll call.

How the board voted: For each motion reported on the public record the meeting transcript records a roll‑call vote; the votes announced at the meeting were unanimous in favor on the items presented (recorded as Aye by the members called).

Why this matters: The phone‑system purchase and paving work involve capital and operations spending that will affect district facilities and communications. Graduation approvals finalize this year’s diplomas and event planning. Personnel votes change building leadership and staff assignments for the coming year.

What the district did not say at the meeting: The meeting record notes the phone‑system purchase is “not to exceed $300,000,” but it does not include a vendor contract number, a detailed project scope, or a breakdown of funding sources for the purchase and the paving work. The transcript records donations but not the Ohio Beef Council dollar amount. The settlement agreement and some personnel details were announced in summary form; the meeting did not include an extended public explanation of the settlement’s terms.

Speakers quoted in this article are identified from the meeting record.