P-D-Y names principal for middle school

7/4/2002
BY JANE SCHMUCKER
BLADE STAFF WRITER

DELTA - The Pike-Delta-York school board has hired its seventh-grade social studies teacher, Dennis Ford, as middle school principal.

Mr. Ford replaces Joseph Friess, who was hired this spring by the Wauseon school board to be principal of its Burr Road Middle School.

The Pike-Delta-York board unanimously gave Mr. Ford a two-year contract beginning Aug. 1. He will be paid $65,500, which is about $1,500 more than Mr. Friess was paid to supervise the middle school's 420 students in grades six through eight.

Mr. Ford, who has been employed by the district for 10 years, was paid just over $47,000 last school year. He was one of eight applicants for the job, Superintendent Bill Lodermeier said.

Mr. Ford is a former president of the Pike-Delta-York Education Association teachers union.

In other action last week the school board:

  • Reduced the allocation for summer band camp personnel to $3,500 from $6,500. What cuts are made with the reduced funds will be up to the band director, Mr. Lodermeier said.

    The move, approved by a 4-0 vote, was part of a budget-cutting effort for the board, which started taking in less money than it was spending more than three years ago.

    The board decided last month to take a request for a permanent, 1 percent income tax off the Aug. 6 ballot out of concern that the new superintendent, Russ Griggs, who starts Aug. 1, and new treasurer, Joyce Kinsman, who started recently, would not have enough time to prepare a financial analysis of the district for voters to consider.

    The issue was removed early enough that the school board will only be billed $35 for a proof that was made of the ballot. Ballots had not yet been printed when the school board decided to remove its request for the tax.

  • Denied a grievance filed by its former head football coach and its teachers' union over a new standardized interviewing process for the district's 100 coaches and extracurricular advisers.

    Chris Werbylo, a high school math teacher who had been the district's head football coach from 1990 to 1995, wanted to be an assistant coach next school year. But he objected to answering about 60 standardized questions in a recorded interview with the superintendent or a principal.

    “It was open to interpretation and there has been mistrust between the superintendent and the union,” Mr. Werbylo said.

    He said that the standardized questions were aimed at determining personality traits rather than adeptness at particular advising or coaching positions and he believed the change should have been negotiated with the union.

    Mr. Lodermeier said the interviews were recorded so other administrators could listen to them later, without calling the interviewee back in for another round of questions.

    The grievance will go before an arbitrator who is to be jointly picked by legal counsel for the school and the union.