Zint elected new Greenfield board president

Eric Zint was elected as the new president of the Greenfield Exempted Village Schools Board of Education, and the board approved the purchase of four new school buses at its annual organizational meeting Thursday night.

Board member Doug Mustard nominated Zint to serve as president and Sandy Free seconded the motion. The motion was approved by a 4-0 vote, with Zint abstaining.

Zint is in his first four-year term on the board and this will be first time serving as president. Mustard held the position last year.

Mustard was unanimously elected as the board’s vice president for 2017.

In other business, the board voted unanimously to pass a motion to purchase four new 81-passenger school buses.

“We went through a spurt when the district did not purchase buses, so we’re just trying to update the fleet,” superintendent Joe Wills said Friday. “It will enable us to have a newer fleet and take some of the older buses off the road.”

Wills said some of the older buses will be sold, although he said he was not sure of the exact number.

Much of the school district’s bus fleet was sidelined in October after a spot inspection by the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and for a time Greenfield had to borrow buses from the Hillsboro, Fairfield, Washington C.H. and Chillicothe school districts to keep its 15 routes running.

Then at a November school board meeting, three of the district’s school bus drivers addressed the board, saying problems with the district’s buses were more than minor. One of them, 35-year district employee Debbie Bobb, said she had “never seen the buses in this bad of shape.” She said that three buses were still out of service five weeks after the state patrol’s spot inspection.

Wills said at the time that the district took what happened with the buses very seriously, that a bus that failed an inspection had never been put on the road before it was repaired, and that the district would continue to address concerns with the school buses.

The board also set the dates and times for its regular meetings in 2017. Wills said the board generally meets on the third Monday of each month except when holidays or something else interfere. The date, time and location of this year’s regular meetings are listed below:

• Jan. 23, 7 p.m., Greenfield boardroom;

• Feb. 27, 7 p.m., Rainsboro;

• March 20, 7 p.m., Greenfield boardroom;

• April 19, 7 p.m., Buckskin;

• May 15, 7 p.m., Greenfield boardroom;

• June 26, 7 p.m., Greenfield boardroom;

• July 24, 7 p.m., Greenfield boardroom;

• Aug. 14, 7 p.m., Greenfield boardroom;

• Sept. 18, 7 p.m., Rainsboro;

• Oct. 16, 7 p.m., Greenfield boardroom;

• Nov. 20, 7 p.m., Buckskin;

• Dec. 18, 7 p.m., Greenfield boardroom.

The board voted to employee the following individuals pending the completion of all required documentation: Codie Cory, classified substitute; and Rachael Link, certified substitute teacher.

Board members were appointed to several positions: Free is the Ohio School Board Association (OSBA) legislative liaison; Mustard is the OSBA delegate; Marilyn Mitchell is the OSBA alternate; Jason Allison is the OSBA student achievement liaison; and Greg Barr, although no longer a Greenfield Board of Education member, remains the board’s voting member for the Great Oaks Joint Vocational School District.

Reach Jeff Gilliland at 937-402-2522 or on Twitter @13gillilandj.

Wills
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2017/01/web1_Wills-Joe-mug.jpgWills
School board approves purchase of four new buses

By Jeff Gilliland

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