January 11, 2008

Good Friday to you all, and Happy New Year! It’s been great to see everyone back; I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable holiday season. And I hope your first full week of 2008 was a good one. (And I hope you’ve all come out of mourning after that “unfortunate incident” on Monday evening!)

As you might expect, it was pretty quiet around here over break, and that was OK—I got quite a bit of work done! But we did have some “happenings” that I want to share.

First, on January 2, we had Clark State Community College officials on campus to sign the formal lease for their new space on our campus (in House #3 out front—I hope you’ve noticed the sign!) Anne Reames, our Board President, and I were happy to welcome them. It was a cold, windy, snowy day to have our picture taken by the building, but it was a great occasion! Clark State’s presence will allow them to expand their general education course offerings (in addition to the healthcare pathway courses they’ve been offering), leading to multiple associate degree options and transferrable to any public college or university in Ohio. We also have an exchange-of-services agreement with them that will give our staff a 1/3 tuition scholarship. We anticipate this partnership bringing many benefits to adults and high-school students alike, and we welcome Clark State to Ohio Hi-Point!

We held our Board of Education Organizational Meeting on Saturday, January 5. Anne Reames from Bellefontaine was re-elected President, and Bill Ramsey from Benjamin Logan was re-elected Vice President. Scott Johnson from Marysville will continue as our Legislative Liaison with the Ohio School Board’s Association. We also welcomed four new Board Members: Pat Wagner representing Graham, Steve Lapp returning to represent West Liberty-Salem, Kim Boswell returning to represent Indian Lake, and Dean McCullough representing Ridgemont. We thank these Board Members and all the others for their continued leadership and dedication to our District!

We also have three new faces on our Main Campus! Don Jaunzemis has replaced Denny Livingston (retired) as Business Operations Coordinator, Rene Mejia is our new Spanish teacher, and Stacy Colwell is a new aide in Early Childhood Education (replacing Barb Culp who has moved to ProjectSEARCH). Please take a moment to welcome these new staff members—it’s great to have them on board!

Wednesday evening, Shane Haggerty hosted a meeting of the Steering Committee for the newly forming “Ohio Hi-Point Alumni and Friends Association.” We are working through the details of the membership and mission for this organization. But stay tuned—we’re confident we’ll be building a dynamic group of supporters of OHP and thinking of ways to benefit our current and future students. And we’ll be seeking your input!

I’m a little late in passing this along, but I wanted to share with you that I received a letter in mid-December from Harold Marker, one of our Sloan Trustees, congratulating us on our excellent performance on our performance measures. Harold wrote:

Congratulations to you as well as to all the administrators, faculty, students, and staff members at Ohio Hi-Point Career Center! Being ranked tenth in the State of Ohio on the list of the top career and technical schools is a huge accomplishment! The speed with which the rise in rank occurred is very impressive!

Harold is one of our biggest cheerleaders and supporters, and we appreciate his acknowledgement of this accomplishment!

I have to share kind of a cute story. One of our vendors was on campus this week, and she was with me in the lobby of the Main Building carrying a fairly big load. One of our students passed by and, without hesitation, asked if he could assist her. She declined, and he went right on his way. I wish I had gotten his name, but he seemed in a hurry to get to class. The visitor said, “Wow, I’ve never had that happen in a school before!” She seemed kind of taken back that a student would be so forthcoming with an offer for assistance. I told her I wasn’t surprised at all—our students are just like that!

For the first time, I’ve had a response from someone outside our District who read my blog. I wasn’t sure that would ever happen! But it’s nice to know someone has happened upon the blog and learned of some of the great things happening at OHP! I hope that “global audience” will grow, and I encourage you all to keep “feeding up” the good news so that I can share!

Have a great weekend!