The four Tioga ISD campus administrators received a contract extension at the Monday night board meeting, as did Superintendent Josh Ballinger.
The administrator contracts for Elementary Principal Jana Hansen, Middle School Principal Pamela Moore, High School Principal Keith Kirkland and Athletic Director Zach Birdwell were approved by a vote of 3-03, with board President Dallas Slay, Secretary Ryan Walters and trustee Mica Bates voting yes.
While calling the vote, Slay said, “Do you abstain or you vote nay? There’s a difference.”
Two of the board members— Trina Colteryahn and Brandon Miller—seemed to say no during the vote.
However, they both said they abstained instead along with Dugan Rainey when Slay clarified the vote.
When asked whether the abstentions were due to a conflict of interest, the three declined to comment.
Ballinger’s contract extension was a separate item and vote that was unanimous.
All of the extensions stretched the contracts through the ‘26-27 year, and none of them included a raise.
Also at the meeting, the school board approved the ‘25-26 calendar, which the Site Based Committee worked to create.
The process for developing the calendar looked a bit different than in the past, Ballinger said.
“There were lots of different ideas thrown around, but in the end, it really came down to we’ve liked how this year’s gone,” he said. “We obviously would prefer to start before the fourth Monday in August, but since we can’t, that locks that in pretty well, therefore it locks in where we can get out.”
Some of the Mondays off in the upcoming calendar will be different than they were in the ‘24-25 calendar.
“And then we have a couple more weeks that are five days as well,” he said. “So, that relatively small group of people that wanted us to go entirely back to five-day weeks are getting a little more than what they normally have.”
The new calendar also gives a full week off for Thanksgiving break.
“There were a few complaints on not sending out a survey like we’ve done in the past, and for a lot of different reasons, it was my decision to send eight people out to have those conversations in person and … all of those ideas were brought back to a meeting and considered as much as possible,” he said.
Ballinger also spoke briefly about an item on the consent agenda, the PEIMS fall resubmission and mid-year submission, to say that the staff is having to look for incorrect information manually because the program is not catching them itself.
During the superintendent’s report, Ballinger said the 2021 and 2022 audit reports are still not completed.
“We hope to have them in March,” he said. “… We’re a couple of months behind on that ‘21 one, and now a month behind on what we told TEA, so I’ll stay in communication with them to let them know we haven’t forgotten.”
Reconstructing an audit is more challenging than handling it from the start, Ballinger said.
“How that’s going to change ‘23 and ‘24, I guess we’ll wait and see,” he added. “Hopefully the ripple effect of that won’t make us look at ‘23 and ‘24 again.”
Nicholas Oliver, who will be on the board in May, interacts with a Tioga ISD family before the meeting Monday. Abigail Allen/The Post-Signal
