Ash Grove R-4 sets employees, schedule for next school year

During a Feb. 25 closed session meeting of the Ash Grove Board of Education many moves were made by the body regarding personnel.

The board voted to employ, for the school year 2026-2027:

- Laura Hance as a paraprofessional; 

- Ashley Morrell as a paraprofessional;

- Kimmie Aaron as a special education teacher; 

- Gail Breite as an elementary teacher;

- Emily Wood as an elementary teacher;

- Tiffany Nixon as an elementary teacher;

- Greg White as junior high/high school principal.

The board also voted to extend the contracts of current employees Hannah Thompson, Alicia Floyd, Austin Houp, Brian Bagley, Kelli Hartman, and Grant Williamson as athletic director.  

Conversely, the board accepted the resignations of current employees Jazzlyn Myers and Olivia Steimel.

School schedule accepted

Slight changes are also ahead for next year's school schedule, which was informed by input from the Superintendent Advisory Council. In the proposed timeline accepted by the board, the district will have a start date of Aug. 25, due to a new state mandate to start no more than 14 days before Labor Day.

In a major change, the first semester will actually end after Christmas break on Jan. 15. This to balance out each semester at 75 student days.

Next year's calendar also includes a two-week Christmas break, a three-day Thanksgiving break, a four-day weekend with Good Friday and Easter but due to time constraints no spring break. 

Superintendent Shane Medlin said next year will look a lot like this year.

"The calendars are actually very similar with the same instructional hours as last year maintaining the 150 student days and 1,077 instructional hours," Medlin said. "The state minimum is 1,044 hours."