Wind Power Talks Exciting

David Deskins, Archbold Area School District superintendent, said talks about a possible wind power project for the school district have been interesting and exciting.

During the Archbold Area School Board's Monday night, Feb. 18 meeting, Deskins said an anonymous donor had contributed $5,000 to assist in funding wind power studies for the district.

The school district is in the process of applying for the loan of a 168-foot wind-study tower. Equipment mounted on the tower will monitor wind speeds for more than a year, to determine about how much power a wind turbine could be expected to generate.

So far, Deskins said, private donations have allowed the district to explore wind power possibilities, without the expenditure of school district funds.

He said the Fulton County commissioners, the German Township trustees, and the VilWeatherper lage of Archbold had been cooperating with the school's wind power project.

Department of Education

Deskins told board members the Department of Education was planning to trim $100 million from its budget over the next two years.

He said the money was originally going to be cut from funds the department forwards to local school districts, but now, he said, state officials are discussing internal ODE staff cuts to cover the reductions.

He told board members the school district can expect the $100 million cut to impact either dollars sent to the school district or services provided by the State of Ohio.

"We will not have a clue," about the future impact of the $100 million cut until the matter is sorted out by state officials.

Deskins said school administrators and officials of the Archbold Education Association, the organization that represents teachers and other professional staff in contract negotiation, agreed on some portions of a new contract. The agreement covers limited language changes.

Also, Deskins attended a recent meeting of the Northern Buckeye Educational Council. He said administrators were told health insurance costs were up.

Two NBEC insurance programs spent more than they took in. Vision insurance spent 4% more than it took in, while the Preferred Care program took in 2% more than it generated.

He said a few Archbold personnel belonged to the Preferred Care plan.

Agenda

School board members approved several measures as part of their consensus agenda, including regular and special meeting minutes, accepting amounts and rates as determined by the county budget commission, and approving appropriations modifications.

The board also approved adding agricultural and industrial mechanics and advanced computer aided design to the AHS curriculum.

Rights and responsibilities, and music history will be dropped.