Plum School Board Notebook: Staffing Agency, Track Resurfacing & More

Here's a roundup of items discussed at the June Plum School Board meeting:

Kelly Services

The school district will continue to use a staffing agency to place substitutes in the classroom.

The board voted 6-2 to continue its agreement with Kelly Educational Staffing. Board members Tom McGough and Loretta White dissented. John St. Leger was absent.

The board has been using Kelly services for about a year to find substitutes for teachers, custodians, nurses, food services workers and more.     

White said she wasn't happy with the fill rate percentages of last year—many of them reduced from when the district called substitutes from its own list. They are as follows:

• 50.2 percent for custodians
• 87 percent for paraprofessionals
• 79 percent for food service workers
• 96.9 percent for administrative assistants
• 74 percent for nurses

Nicola Soares, vice president of Kelly Educational Staffing, met with district officials during a finance committee meeting last month and said she was "not satisfied" with the fill rates in Plum. She said she hopes to increase the fill rate for teachers from 95 percent to 98 percent.

"We want to improve this," Soares said. "I'm very confident our performance rates will improve."

Kelly Services also works with Pine-Richland and Fox Chapel school districts locally.

Track

The high school track will be resurfaced. The board agreed to hire Track Surfaces Company to repair the track material for $181,900. Officials began discussing the matter last year. The current track is more than 10 years old and is in need of some repairs, according to officials.

Parking

Officials are looking to add parking spots at . The board agreed to advertise for bids for a porous paving stone parking lot. Officials said they hope the lot deters people from parking on the high school fire lanes.

Memorial

Joe Knapp, owner of JMK Concrete, and Bill Fenk, owner of Wall King, are donating their services to install a memorial for the Griffith family at . Students Brenna and Mikaela Griffith and their mother, Kimberly, during a flash flood on Washington Boulevard in Pittsburgh.

Personnel

The board approved the following:

Hirings
-Skylar Hill as a part-time (11-week period) technology technician at a rate of $7.25 per hour.
-Kathleen Kearney, homebound instructor, at $27 per hour for up to 10 hours a week.
-Bradley Baumiller, homebound instructor, $27 per hour for up to five hours a week.

Resignations
-Carol Dugan, bus aide
-Cindy Kacin, food service worker at
-Margarita Wachholder, floating staff nurse

Professional Contracts

The following teachers were offered professional contracts with the district for completing three years of service: Philip Beatty, Kelly Bechtold, Jason Birch, Matilyn Bonura, Brianne Brown, Gina Dankmyer, Tiffany Knouff, Lindsay Kostorick, Jenna Romanelli, Courtney Mendenhall, James Nesbit, Dayna Savko, Jodi Schorr, Stephen Stremple, Carissa Whitney and Kelly Wickersty.

iPads

The PTA has donated Smart Boards and iPads for students at the school.

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