New H.R. Director, Asst. Principal At WCS
July 25, 2018 at 5:40 p.m.
New H.R. Director, Asst. Principal At WCS
By David [email protected]
Sheila Howe started as the H.R. director July 1 after serving as WCS’s financial operations manager. Chief Accountability Officer Dani Barkey introduced her by saying the central administration office underwent a little reorganization and H.R. will now be a part of the business office.
“She brings with her just a plethora of experiences,” Barkey said.
Howe said 18 years ago she started as a substitute bus driver and a bus aide. As the years went on, she became a corporation treasurer, got her degree, became a business manager, transportation director and then landed at Warsaw where she became the WCS financial operations manager.
“I’ve been blessed to be able to move over to the H.R. department,” she said.
WCS Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said, “We’re so excited to have Sheila on board in this position. Again, we just felt it was the right person at the right time.”
She replaces Jeanine Corson as H.R. director, whose resignation the school board accepted as part of the personnel report.
When Howe moved to the H.R. director position, April Fitterling moved from corporation treasurer to financial operations manager. Hoffert said WCS is still searching for a treasurer, as well as a recruiter for the H.R. department.
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After Angela Huffman left WCHS as an assistant principal, the search was on for her replacement. On Monday Akers introduced him – Matthew Barrett.
“I’m real excited to have Matthew Barrett here today,” Akers said.
The assistant principal job at the high school is his first administrative position.
“We had a very, very deep candidate pool. Deeper and at higher level ... it was very, very difficult. I congratulate Matt for being selected to this position,” Akers said.
Barrett worked at Lawrence Township Schools. He and his wife Megan have two children with another one due in February.
Barrett thanked the board for having him and said, “This is my feeling this is God’s movement to bring me to Warsaw, and I’m blessed to be here.”
Board President Heather Reichenbach told him, “We’re glad you’re here. Thank you.”
Before Barrett was introduced, Howe told the school board about the classified job fair on Aug. 2. Times are 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. at the central administration office.
“That’s something new that we’re going to be launching this year to try get some classified folks in to help fill those paraprofessional positions,”?she said.
After Howe gave her personnel report, Hoffert said WCS was in desperate need of two math teachers as it had some last-minute resignations.
Chief Academic Officer David Robertson gave the board a school safety update, saying all the school principals have updated their schoolwide safety plans. Those will be reviewed with staff at a staff meeting during this school year.
“We are reviewing the results from the needs assessment that our (school resource officers) did this spring. And we’ve been working with our maintenance departments, Terry Engle specifically, to look at a few facility pieces,” Robertson said.
Additionally, through Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s hand-held metal detector program, each school is able to get one detector per every 250 students. That will give WCS about 28 of them.
“We have put in a request for those metal detectors and should be receiving some in the next couple of weeks,” Robertson said.
The board also heard a lengthy school nurse report from WCS Nurse Coordinator Tracey Akers. She highlighted the duties and responsibilities of her 12 nurses and shared some data.
At Warsaw schools during the 2017-18 school year, she said there was a total of “over 56,000 clinic visits. That includes any type of illness, injury or occurrence ... or any chronic condition visit, which would be like asthma, diabetes or anything like that. And also staff visits.”
Nurses gave out almost 28,000 prescription medications through the school year and about 12,000 over-the-counter medications.
As for 911 calls, she said that was down this past year to only 19.
She highlighted three of her nurses – Julie Reed at Claypool, Jeanine DeGeeter at Harrison and Amy Grill at Jefferson.
Reed was instrumental in starting the Knights Community Closet at Claypool. Claypool’s mascot is a knight.
There’s quite a bit of poverty and low-income in the Claypool area, and Akers said there was a number of students that had a need for clothing.
“She (Reed) was instrumental in getting this started. She made hours and hours and hours of calling places to get racks donated, hangars donated; going through all the donations ... and getting them marked,” Akers said.
After a parent’s application is reviewed, the student goes down with a staff member and fills a sack full of clothes to take home with them. In return, if the family has some clothes they can’t wear anymore but are in good condition, they can bring those back to the closet to donate.
“This to me is an awesome thing that she did this last year,” Akers said.
Jeremy Mullins, school board secretary, asked where people could donate to the closet. Akers said they could contact Reed at Claypool Elementary as she is coordinating that.
On DeGeeter, Akers said DeGeeter the Heimlich Heroes program elsewhere and wanted to bring it to Warsaw Schools. She wrote and was approved for a Red Apple Grant from the Warsaw Education Foundation. The grant provided for eight of the heimlich dolls which helps teach students how to perform the heimlich maneuver. Over 800 students were trained by seven nurses this past school year with the heimlich dolls.
Finally, on Grill, Akers said Grill has a student who has a chronic condition and misses school frequently because of hospital visits. The little girl has never been able to trick-or-treat because of her illnesses, so Grill invited her over to her house so she could wear her Halloween costume and pass out candy since she couldn’t go outside. Grill and her daughter then took the girl to the Wagon Wheel for a show so her parents could have time alone.
“That’s really cool that Amy did that for that student,” Akers said.
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Sheila Howe started as the H.R. director July 1 after serving as WCS’s financial operations manager. Chief Accountability Officer Dani Barkey introduced her by saying the central administration office underwent a little reorganization and H.R. will now be a part of the business office.
“She brings with her just a plethora of experiences,” Barkey said.
Howe said 18 years ago she started as a substitute bus driver and a bus aide. As the years went on, she became a corporation treasurer, got her degree, became a business manager, transportation director and then landed at Warsaw where she became the WCS financial operations manager.
“I’ve been blessed to be able to move over to the H.R. department,” she said.
WCS Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said, “We’re so excited to have Sheila on board in this position. Again, we just felt it was the right person at the right time.”
She replaces Jeanine Corson as H.R. director, whose resignation the school board accepted as part of the personnel report.
When Howe moved to the H.R. director position, April Fitterling moved from corporation treasurer to financial operations manager. Hoffert said WCS is still searching for a treasurer, as well as a recruiter for the H.R. department.
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After Angela Huffman left WCHS as an assistant principal, the search was on for her replacement. On Monday Akers introduced him – Matthew Barrett.
“I’m real excited to have Matthew Barrett here today,” Akers said.
The assistant principal job at the high school is his first administrative position.
“We had a very, very deep candidate pool. Deeper and at higher level ... it was very, very difficult. I congratulate Matt for being selected to this position,” Akers said.
Barrett worked at Lawrence Township Schools. He and his wife Megan have two children with another one due in February.
Barrett thanked the board for having him and said, “This is my feeling this is God’s movement to bring me to Warsaw, and I’m blessed to be here.”
Board President Heather Reichenbach told him, “We’re glad you’re here. Thank you.”
Before Barrett was introduced, Howe told the school board about the classified job fair on Aug. 2. Times are 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. at the central administration office.
“That’s something new that we’re going to be launching this year to try get some classified folks in to help fill those paraprofessional positions,”?she said.
After Howe gave her personnel report, Hoffert said WCS was in desperate need of two math teachers as it had some last-minute resignations.
Chief Academic Officer David Robertson gave the board a school safety update, saying all the school principals have updated their schoolwide safety plans. Those will be reviewed with staff at a staff meeting during this school year.
“We are reviewing the results from the needs assessment that our (school resource officers) did this spring. And we’ve been working with our maintenance departments, Terry Engle specifically, to look at a few facility pieces,” Robertson said.
Additionally, through Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s hand-held metal detector program, each school is able to get one detector per every 250 students. That will give WCS about 28 of them.
“We have put in a request for those metal detectors and should be receiving some in the next couple of weeks,” Robertson said.
The board also heard a lengthy school nurse report from WCS Nurse Coordinator Tracey Akers. She highlighted the duties and responsibilities of her 12 nurses and shared some data.
At Warsaw schools during the 2017-18 school year, she said there was a total of “over 56,000 clinic visits. That includes any type of illness, injury or occurrence ... or any chronic condition visit, which would be like asthma, diabetes or anything like that. And also staff visits.”
Nurses gave out almost 28,000 prescription medications through the school year and about 12,000 over-the-counter medications.
As for 911 calls, she said that was down this past year to only 19.
She highlighted three of her nurses – Julie Reed at Claypool, Jeanine DeGeeter at Harrison and Amy Grill at Jefferson.
Reed was instrumental in starting the Knights Community Closet at Claypool. Claypool’s mascot is a knight.
There’s quite a bit of poverty and low-income in the Claypool area, and Akers said there was a number of students that had a need for clothing.
“She (Reed) was instrumental in getting this started. She made hours and hours and hours of calling places to get racks donated, hangars donated; going through all the donations ... and getting them marked,” Akers said.
After a parent’s application is reviewed, the student goes down with a staff member and fills a sack full of clothes to take home with them. In return, if the family has some clothes they can’t wear anymore but are in good condition, they can bring those back to the closet to donate.
“This to me is an awesome thing that she did this last year,” Akers said.
Jeremy Mullins, school board secretary, asked where people could donate to the closet. Akers said they could contact Reed at Claypool Elementary as she is coordinating that.
On DeGeeter, Akers said DeGeeter the Heimlich Heroes program elsewhere and wanted to bring it to Warsaw Schools. She wrote and was approved for a Red Apple Grant from the Warsaw Education Foundation. The grant provided for eight of the heimlich dolls which helps teach students how to perform the heimlich maneuver. Over 800 students were trained by seven nurses this past school year with the heimlich dolls.
Finally, on Grill, Akers said Grill has a student who has a chronic condition and misses school frequently because of hospital visits. The little girl has never been able to trick-or-treat because of her illnesses, so Grill invited her over to her house so she could wear her Halloween costume and pass out candy since she couldn’t go outside. Grill and her daughter then took the girl to the Wagon Wheel for a show so her parents could have time alone.
“That’s really cool that Amy did that for that student,” Akers said.
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