LOWER LAKE — The Konocti Unified School District Board of Trustees made some important personnel changes at their first meeting of the month Wednesday night.
The district adopted a resolution to layoff 17 classified positions that also reduces the hours of many other classified positions. Dana Moore, director of maintenance and operations for the district, said the list of positions being laid off was considerably bigger earlier in the day. Moore said everything the board had voted on previously regarding layoffs had been precautionary, but this was real.
Superintendent Bill MacDougall said he tried to do the best for the district, students and employees. MacDougall said the district”s classified employees are very important and this was unpleasant for all affected. Moore said MacDougall, business director Laurie Desimone and himself had been working on this nearly non-stop for more than three days. Board member Mary Silva said voting to layoff people hurts and is not done lightly. Silva commended MacDougall and Desimone for their hard work on narrowing the list down. The board voted unanimously to adopt the resolution, though board President Anita Gordon said it was with regret.
In all, the district will layoff five paraprofessionals, three behavior intervention assistants, three campus supervisors, two bilingual paraprofessionals, a bilingual liaison, a clerk for the district bus drivers, the lead bus driver and a substitute bus driver.
The board unanimously approved appointing people to three administrative positions effective July 1. Anel Buechler has been appointed principal of Pomo Elementary School, Dennis To has been appointed principal of Carle Continuation High School and Kevin Wickersham has been appointed assistant principal at Lower Lake High School (LLHS). The board and those in attendance congratulated and applauded Buechler, To and Wickersham.
Aside from personnel issues, the board saw a nearly complete copy of the schedule of classes for LLHS for the 2011-2012 school year. LLHS Principal Jeff Dixon said the schedule is not final but is as near the final version as possible. Dixon said work began on the schedule back in February. Many on the board expressed their gratitude in having such a complete schedule to look at many months before the next school year. Dixon received a round of applause.
A proposed settlement agreement between the California School Employees Association, Konocti Chapter 12 and the district has been continued to the next meeting. A public hearing on the settlement agreement has also been continued to the next meeting. The settlement agreement and public hearing were previously continued from the May 18 meeting.
The board will next meet on June 15 at 6:15 p.m. at the district office.
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14.
