Superintendent Witty gives update on recent board meeting
By Shannon Weidemann (McKone) on Tuesday, October 26th, 2021 in Eastern/Southeast Oregon News More Top Stories
BAKER CITY – The Baker School Board held their regular monthly meeting last week and Superintendent Mark Witty sat down with Elkhorn Media Group staff to give us an update on the highlights of the meeting.
(Q) Thank you for joining me, Mr. Witty. There was a school board meeting yesterday evening. Would you please share some highlights with us?
(A) Thanks for having me, Shannon, we started out the meeting by recognizing our Promise Students of the Month: Elaina Miller from the Baker Early Learning Center and Everett Freeland from South Baker Intermediate.
Seeing students like these always makes me very hopeful for the future.
We also provided an update on our capital bond projects. Our Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee met on Tuesday, October 12, when they were introduced to the new architect for bond projects, LKV Architects, and reviewed the overall project schedule and budget.
On Friday, October 15, the school district held its first internal stakeholder design meeting for the new Middle School Multi-purpose Building. The meeting was led by LKV Architects and attended by representatives of Wenaha Group, our bond project manager, as well as BMS principal Jodi Thew, maintenance manager Curtis Dunn, past food services director Jessica Dalton, district athletics director Buell Gonzales, Jr., BMS athletics director Alan McCauley, BMS PE teacher and wrestling coach Brandon Young, district technology director Justin Crego, board liaison Travis Cook, andmyself.
Survey field work for the new building is complete, and geotechnical site work is scheduled for today.
(Q) That’s really exciting. Next week seems like a busy week for high schoolers in the district. Could you share some details with us?
This week is Homecoming Week, and we’re really pleased that students get to celebrate in pretty traditional ways despite the increased health and safety protocols associated with the pandemic.
There are daily dress up themes, a Pep Night on Wednesday, a Homecoming football game on Friday, and a Homecoming dance on Saturday.
Kickoff for Friday’s football game will be at 7pm, and we’re looking forward to having some fun with our community.
(Q) That all sounds like a lot of fun. Are there any other updates you’d like to share with me?
(A) The school board has been looking at the district’s mission, vision, and goals and has another work session scheduled for next Thursday, October 28, to work on some possible updates.
We’re fortunate to have a school board that is constantly striving to make the district better.
We also learned that BTI is slated to receive a Congressional Discretionary Spending Grant for $544k, thanks to Senator Jeff Merkley, to expand our heavy equipment and truck driving mobile programs to reach more Oregonians.
This will be such an added benefit to students and their communities across the state.
The last highlight I’d like to note is a push by regional superintendents to discuss metrics that would allow us to move away from some of the heightened pandemic health and safety protocols.
I hope to have an update on those conversations at our next meeting.
