Ironwood 'shifts gears' to school year

By Zachary Marano

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Ironwood — The Ironwood Area Schools Board of education met Monday at Luther L. Wright High School to prepare for the start of the next school year.

“It’s summer, at the same time a calm and very, very busy time for shifting gears from last school year to next school year. If you walk into school, you’ll see the various degrees of refreshing that happens as we bring the furniture in, polish floors in certain rooms and we touch up paint and various things,” Superintendent Travis Powell said in his report.

The board continues its search for candidates for open positions. These positions are secondary school counselor, a multi-tiered system of supports, or MTSS, coordinator, secondary science (chemistry and physics) teacher, secondary English teacher, middle school girls basketball coach, JV girls basketball coach, student

senate advisor, junior class advisor, special education aide, paraprofessional and food service worker.

K-12 principal Melissa Nigh said she hopes to be able to interview four candidates for the MTSS position next week. She said there was also a candidate for the English teacher position, but she lost that one.

“It’s a bit of a struggle to find a chem teacher and an English teacher, so we’re trying to come up with a backup plan as well,” Nigh said.

The board also reviewed an update from the special education supervisor from a meeting on July 13.

“We had a day-long meeting with the consultant (from the Gogebic-Ontonagon Intermediate School District) to analyze how our service model works or doesn’t work, or where we needed to improve. It was a very powerful day. We left with some idea of things we can work on to better meet the needs of all our students,” Powell said.

The board approved the purchase of four copy machines from the Japan-based electronics corporation Sharp. These machines will replace the Xerox machines that the school was using.

Powell said he believes the new machines will be less expensive financially and “mental health-wise.”

“Xerox machines are whatever the opposite of popular is. When we leased them, they were very problematic for a long time. The lease is coming to an end,” Powell said. “The whole deal was like we were paying way much more than we should have been for something that was less than good quality according to those that used them. When we purchased the Sharp machines, the service contract is meant to be much more reduced than what we were doing with Xerox.”

The new copy machines include one color copier and three black and white copiers. The color copier will replace the Xerox machine in the office on the main floor. The first and second floors will have black and white copiers, and the third floor will have a “slightly used” black and white copier..

Overall, Powell said that they were on track to start their next school year as normally or familiarly as possible.

In other business, the board:

—Approved a contract with Keweenaw Automation to provide air ionization for $24,760.

—Awarded the milk bid for the school lunch program for the 2021-2022 school year to Twin City Dairy.

—Awarded the bread bid for the school lunch program for the 2021-2022 school year to Pan-O-Gold Baking Co.