Evart board fills elementary principal position

EVART — As districts begin to look towards the next school year, the Evart Public Schools board of education introduced the newest addition to their elementary staff through approving a new principal for the 2022-23 school year at their monthly meeting. Kenneth Ranjel, who has been serving as interim principal ever since the resignation of Ed Dickinson, was approved to officially take over the role for the new school year at the board of education’s meeting. On March 14, the board meeting focused on a number of topics, including Ranjel’s approval. Superintendent Shirley Howard said filling the position required some certifications. “When he applied for the position, Ken had not fully completed his master's degree and didn't have the administrative certificate yet,” Howard said. “He was a fourth-grade teacher at the building and he was highly, highly respected at that time, probably would have gotten the position had he had all the credentials. But the state says that you don’t get to have a temporary permit for someone, you have to be able to show that you didn't have a qualified candidate. “Ed decided he wanted to be closer to his family, and he resigned,” Howard continued. “When he resigned in the summer, it was automatic that we would just move Ken into the interim position. We knew we had to find candidates, and obviously, the summertime is not the time to be looking with school is going to start in a month. He's been an interim this year, and he's done a great job. It was time to take interim off and just name him as the principal.” During the meeting, the board also approved several other new positions including appointing Angela Wimmer as an elementary educational assistant, Kaitlyn Karns as a high school social worker. Additionally, the board approved coaching staff for spring sports including softball, baseball, and track for both boys and girls. In the superintendent’s report, Howard also addressed the district’s inclement weather days utilized. Thus far, the administration has used 10 days total, nine for poor weather conditions and one for illness reasons. Moving forward, the district is hoping that no additional days will need to be taken off, as they will cause days to be added on to the end of the year for students and staff to make up. Howard said the weather’s unpredictability could make things complicated. “We are facing at least one makeup day as long as the weather doesn't do anything bad in the next month,” Howard said. “You never know about Michigan weather, because in 2018 we had an inclement weather day on April 15. If we just end up with one day, we're looking at different options of how we can do it. We really don't have any days that we can use between now and then." “We are out early the Friday before Memorial Day so we should come back on Tuesday,” she added. “Getting kids to come back for just one day will probably be a very big challenge, so we're trying to figure out maybe something different.” Lastly, Howard addressed the spring count for the district, which is up 12 students from the fall count. The district was at 874 for the fall count and now stands at 886 total for the spring count day. Howard said seeing student retention is a positive sign for the future of the district. “We're pretty stable,” Howard said. “It's not that all the same kids we had last fall, we're very transient. We have had a lot move out and a lot moving in throughout the year, which makes it even a little more difficult when you're trying to look at test scores on everything. For us, it’s so important to have kids here every day, all year.” For more information on Evart Public Schools, visit the district’s website at www.evartps.org.

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