A side of Kraut

by

Casey K rautkramer Reporter

Power of the people at polls

Wow! What a relief for the Athens and Stratford school districts. Both of their operational referendums passed in Tuesday’s spring election to ensure the schools stay open for the foreseeable future.

As a resident of Stratford, I can now still use the Knoll Fitness Center that is attached to Stratford High School free of charge. I would’ve likely been charged an annual fee to use the fitness center had the school district referendum failed.

School district parents are not fond of hearing their middle school students’ athletics and other extracurricular activities would’ve been cut had both the Athens and Stratford school district operational referendums on Tuesday. failed Now everyone can breathe a sign of relief.

Athens School District administration is feeling much better today now that the operational referendum passed, yet there is still some tough work left to do. The Athens Board of Education will meet at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 12, in the Athens middle/highschoollibrary to decide if it still needs to eliminate four Athens elementary school teachers and reduce three Athens middle school teachers’ jobs from full to part-time next school year as part of $900,000 the school district still needs to cut despite the referendum passing. The deadline is this Monday, April 10, for Athens School District teachers to accept the school district’s post-employment benefit package and retire. From what I’ve heard, teachers are not eligible to retire until they are at least 55 years old, therefore only a handful of Athens School District teachers are eligible to retire and accept the school district’s postemployment benefit package offered to them. I know the school district offered the post-employment benefit package to all teachers to be fair, but I was under the impression even a younger teacher could resign and accept the post-employment benefit package. I later found out this isn’t the case because only teachers who are eligible to retire can take the post-employment benefit package.

This means the Athens School Board might still need to make tough decisions on April 12, if none or not enough of the teachers choose to retire and accept the post-employment benefit package offered to them.

Athens School Board incumbents Jessica Frahm, Tucker Diethelm, Tim Krueger and Steve Janke were re-elected on Tuesday. Challenger Angie Servi of Hamburg defeated incumbent Kristen Winter of Hamburg for the final seat.

Winter will still be a member of the Athens School Board when the school board meets next week to make tough decisions on budget cuts. Servi will take her oath of office on April 24.