The Hillsboro City Schools Board of Education on Monday accepted the resignation of a teacher who last week was found guilty of misdemeanor sex charges involving two juvenile girls.
In other action at the board’s monthly meeting, a firm was approved for the architecture and design of a new 800-seat auditorium at the high school/middle school, and new contracts were approved for Superintendent Tim Davis and Treasurer Ben Teeters.
The resignation of Steve Holland, a former high school industrial tech teacher, was approved unanimously effective Feb. 15, 2019.
A jury found Holland guilty on Feb. 14 of two counts of sexual imposition, a misdemeanor offense, in an emotional trial in Highland County Common Pleas Court.
He will be sentenced at 10:30 a.m. March 20 and faces up to 120 days in county jail on each count. He is currently under supervision by the Highland County Probation Department and will be electronically monitored until his sentencing hearing.
The board unanimously approved Woolpert as the architect for the 23,000-square-foot auditorium project with a projected cost of $6 million.
Davis said the hope is that Woolpert gets started on designing the project this month.
“We are excited about bringing (the auditorium) to our students because of the great job they are doing there. We have a lot of talent,” Davis said.
The superintendent said the administration has talked with the school district’s fine arts staff about what they want out of an auditorium.
The school board previously said the auditorium would be an addition to the existing high school with two locker rooms, where students can change and apply makeup for performances.
At last month’s board meeting, Davis said the goal is to see construction start this summer, and once construction starts, the project will take about 16 months to complete, depending on weather and other factors.
The board unanimously approved a new five-year contract for Davis that will take effect Aug. 1 of this year. His current annual salary of $97,500 will jump to $115,000 next year, and will have increases each year thereafter with Davis making $125,000 in the final year of the contract, according to Teeters.
Teeters received a new three-year contract that also goes into effect Aug. 1 of this year. He said his currently annual salary of $86,400 will increase $90,000, with an additional $2,000 each following year after he is evaluated.
Following an executive session, Teeters said, the board approved Davis to negotiate on behalf of the board in a court settlement with former Hillsboro schools Administrator Kathy Hoop.
Hoop’s contract as principal of the district’s alternative school was non-renewed in May of 2017 following a unanimous vote by the school board. She had served in several other principal positions within the district and worked for the district for 21 years.
Jim Smith, the superintendent at the time, said Hoop was at the end of a three-year contract and that her position had been eliminated. Smith, who made the recommendation to the board to not renew Hoop’s administrative contract, said he could not go into the reasons her contract was not renewed, but said it was primarily because her position was discontinued.
In other matters, the board approved the expenditure of an estimated $18,582 to improve camera cabling in the district through the Absolute Cabling Company of Blanchester.
Davis said the money will be used to upgrade to high definition cameras in the elementary school.
“We have already done this in the high school,” Davis said. “It’s an unbelievable improvement for the things we’ve been able to see and go back and look at. It’s a whole new dynamic on what we can see and hear in the hallways.”
Reach Jeff Gilliland at 937-402-2522.
