CHURUBUSCO - Nick Uecker is the newest member of the Smith-Green Community School board of directors.

Uecker will replace Paul Bowser, who resigned suddenly in early June, citing personal reasons.

Board members voted unanimously at the July 7 board meeting to choose Uecker over three other candidates for the District 3 Green Township seat. Other candidates included Kayla Crance, Bill Pape and Jeff Rosswurm. All four were interviewed by the board at a public meeting held in June.

New textbook fees were approved for students in grades K-12 in 2008-09. A list of middle school and high school textbook costs are available at the school. Elementary school textbooks and material costs are as follows:

Grade K - $49.40; up $6.55 from last year;

Grade 1 - $127.10; down $.15 from last year;

Grade 2 - $103.15; down $3.50;

Grade 3 - $124.45; down $2.10;

Grade 4 - $130.15; up $4.05;

Grade 5 - $109.20; down $.90.

Board members Tanya Young, Cathy Petrie, Brandon Almas and Robert Amber agreed to table a proposal that will establish extracurricular and curricular transportation fees for students.

The proposal calls for a $10 for each extracurricular activity charge for middle school students and a $30 per activity charge for high schoolers. This would include groups such as sports teams and show choirs.

Curricular trip fees - such as field trips - would charge $1.05 per mile plus the driver’s salary and benefit costs for trips made in a school bus, and $.65 per mile for trips made in an activity bus.

Board members had many questions, including how the fees would be charged to the students and if the fees would possibly cause a reduction in curricular and extracurricular participation.

“These trips must be self-funded now,” said Carol Kaiser, superintendent. “We’ve already asked the administration to (evaluate carefully) in their selection of trips.”

Amber said he thought the numbers were arbitrary and that “someone had made them up.” His fear, he said, was that the formula would not be equitable to all students. “If this causes a reduction (of participation), then it hurts the students,” Amber said.

“Football may have six road trips, but a lot more players than baseball or basketball, who also take many more road trips,” Amber said. “My numbers are too far off to be comfortable with this,” he said.

Almas said he would like a more in-depth analysis of exactly how much more fuel is costing the school than at this same time last year and what effect fuel costs have had on the budget.

Kaiser said some pieces of the transportation budget were already in the red.

Petrie pointed out that any child who qualifies for a free or reduced lunch plan would also be eligible for provisions to assist with the transportation fees.

Kaiser said she will compile the information Amber and Almas requested for the board to review at its July 21 meeting.

In other business:

• The board accepted the resignation of Mark Snyder, high school principal, and Carter Jones, high school English teacher, effective immediately.

• Jennifer Homan was hired as a high school English teacher for the 2008-09 school year. Homan has taught English at the George Washington Carver High School in Columbus, Ga., for the past 13 years. She has a bachelor of science degree in education, a master’s in English and a specialist degree in English education - all from Columbus State University in Columbus, Ga. She also is a member of the military, and was stationed in Germany from 1985-87. Heather Heironimus was hired as the high school special education teacher for the upcoming year. Heironimus lives in Fort Wayne and graduated May 2006 from Wittenberg University with a major in education and a minor in sociology. She was the special education teacher at Muncie Central High School last year and an intervention specialist at Tolles Career and Technical Center in Plain City, Ohio, during the 2006-07 school year.

• A compensation pay of $318.45 per day and $159.23 per half day was approved for Jerry Lang, who is filling in as principal of the high school since Snyder resigned. Lang is assistant principal at the high school.

• Ben Moore, media specialist, gave a report on the school’s two libraries - one in elementary and one in high school. He said he meets once a month with the director of the Churubusco Public Library to discuss collaborative resources and shared programs between the public library and the school libraries. Moore said during the last school year, 16,008 books were checked out by students in elementary school and 11,969 books were checked out by middle and high school students. “The books are smaller in elementary and they don’t have as much homework,” Moore said, explaining the difference in numbers. “When the older kids check out books, they tend to be (more lengthy) and in-depth.”

• The board held an executive (closed) session prior to its regular meeting to meet and interview prospective employees.

On Buscovoice.com in next 48 hours - board members discuss options for revamping and updating voting districts.