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Jennings County School Corporation reorganizes board, approves $300,398 Sand Creek roofing contract and several policy, personnel and partnership items
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Summary
The Jennings County School Corporation reorganized its board leadership, kept current board compensation limits, approved a $300,398 roofing contract for Sand Creek Elementary, adopted a false-reporting handbook addendum, approved personnel hires and stipends, accepted donations, and approved two Southeastern Career Center resolutions and several MOUs.
The Jennings County School Corporation convened and carried out a routine organizational meeting in which trustees elected new officers, retained existing compensation limits and approved a series of contracts, personnel actions and partnership agreements.
The board opened with a temporary presiding officer who said they would preside until a president was elected. Trustees voted to keep the board’s pay structure unchanged despite a recent state rule change that would have raised the allowable maximum; the board retained an annual stipend of $2,000 and per-diem rates of $130 for regular meetings and $70 for special meetings.
In a slate of officer votes, the board closed nominations and elected a new board president (the meeting record contains inconsistent name spellings, variously shown as “Amy Perez,” “Amy Pettit” and “Amy Pitt”), and approved Cheryl Miller as vice president and Pat Sullivan as secretary. The board also appointed Philip Marsh as treasurer and Myra Fishfoot as deputy treasurer, and approved Deb Johnson as executive secretary.
Contract and project approvals were a focal point. Staff reported Royalty Roofing as the low bidder for the 2026 Sand Creek Elementary roofing project at $300,398 and asked the board to approve the contract. A representative who identified himself in the record both as “George Manson” and later as “George Vance” described his company’s commercial roofing experience and answered questions; the board approved the roofing contract by voice vote.
Administrators presented a proposed addendum to the K–12 student handbook addressing false reporting, the same item discussed at the prior work session. Trustees voted to approve the addendum; staff said the addendum will be shared with parents immediately and incorporated into the printed handbook next year.
Personnel actions approved included career-increment master teacher stipends for Casey Ernesus and Sarah Prince; the hiring of David Sheppard III as a family and consumer science/culinary arts teacher for the new high school; and the hire of Kendall Wildey as assistant softball coach at Jennings County High School. All personnel motions were approved unanimously in the record.
The board read and accepted multiple donations supporting student lunches, snacks, the Panther Pantry and staff PBIS accounts, including a $4,000 gift from Ed and Lisa Bealey for student lunches and various smaller monetary and in-kind gifts from community donors.
On interdistrict matters, trustees unanimously approved two resolutions related to the Southeastern Career Center. The first updated the center’s operating agreement to allow new members to join pending unanimous approval of member districts. The second resolution approved adding Madison Consolidated Schools as a member; staff said Madison’s buyback amount could be about $598,000, a figure that would reduce other members’ capital obligations and help stabilize tuition costs, though the exact buyback depends on factors such as prior enrollment and length of separation.
The board also approved several routine memoranda of understanding with higher-education partners — including agreements for internships and student-teaching placements with the University of Indianapolis, Indiana Wesleyan University and Indiana State University — describing them as standard arrangements to support special-education internships, counseling placements and student teaching.
Supervising officials closed with public praise for high school staff and students after the state released updated graduation figures; the meeting record reports the district’s graduation rate at about 95.6 percent and notes sustained improvement.
The board adjourned after completing the agenda. The meeting record contains several inconsistent name spellings and institution-name variants noted here; those inconsistencies are flagged in the meeting record and clarifying details.
