Colby K-12 OK’s support administrator job

By Nathaniel Underwood

The Colby School Board approved the addition of a support administrator role for the middle and high school at its latest meeting on Jan. 20.

While the exact duties of the new position will still need to be clarified, the primary purpose of this additional administrator will be to take on attendance and lower level discipline issues, allowing the high school and middle school principals to focus more on their other duties.

Superintendent Patrick Galligan noted that sometimes these other duties held by administrators can be difficult to get to because they are busy with day-to-day discipline that comes up. The unexpected nature of when many of these issues arise can often take administrators away from other things they had planned.

“Working through behavior takes a lot of time,” high school principal Steve Wozniak said. “We don’t like to just say, ‘here’s a detention’ or ‘here’s a suspension.’ You want to follow up with them, meet with them, and build that connection.”

While the current principals would still be involved with those types of disciplinary issues, the new administrator would assist with monitoring and dealing with attendance issues, talking with parents about ways to rectify attendance issues, and handling disciplinary conversations and followup.

The assistant may also take on other duties as well, though the specifics of those duties are still unknown.

With longtime middle school principal Jim Hagen retiring after this school year, the district will soon be entering a search to hire a replacement Galligan said the district will likely be looking for someone who would best fit the middle school principal role first and foremost and that the additional duties held by Hagen, such as co-athletic director, may be filled elsewhere.

The new administrator position was noted as being a possible landing spot for some of those duties, but until the new principal is hired, the district will not fully know what it may want from the new position.

“Maybe those responsibilities could be taken over by this person,” Galligan said. “Maybe it goes to another administrator and instead we exchange roles for summer school responsibility or for district testing or any number of other things that our administrators do as part of their roles right now.”

This new position was described as an entry-level administrator role, with a salary likely between a highend teacher and a full-time administrator.

“If we could get someone with principal licensure, I think that would be wonderful,” Galligan added. “I see it as a position that might eventually lead to a full time administrator position, by getting them some experience and I could see it building that resume for the person. I can’t guarantee we would get someone who has an administrative background, but it could be a way to encourage them to take that next step and a good trial for them to see if [going into administration] is something they want to do.”

The board voted unanimously to create the new administrator position.

Other business

■ ■ A timeline for the next steps in the referendum project process was presented at the Jan. 20 meeting. The next few months will be dedicated to the design phase, where schematics and options will be developed, discussed and approved.

In February, the schematic design portion will begin, with three to four design team meetings to be scheduled over the next two months. During this time, site surveys and soil tests will also be conducted. Design will continue to get more detailed over the spring and summer months, with a hope that everything will be ready to go out to bid by August or September. This would then allow construction to begin in the spring of 2026.

■ ■ Wages were increased for teachers substituting for co-workers and for positions in extracurricular and co-curricular activities.

The rates for a sixth through 12th grade teacher substituting in a classroom increased from $13.50 for a 1 to 30 minute block or $27 for a 31 to 60 minute block to $20 for a 1 to 30 minute block or $40 for a 31 to60 minute block. Pre-K through fifth grade teachers would also see a bump from $27 for more than 30 minutes or $54 for more than four hours to $40 and $75 for those two categories respectively.

It was stated that finding outside substitute teachers has been more difficult and that these changes would better reward teachers for helping out when other substitutes cannot be brought in.

Coaches for extracurricular sports and advisors for school clubs will also see raises. Head varsity coaches will see a 20 percent increase in wages, while high school activity staff will get a15 percent average increase, and middle school activity staff will get 10 percent average raise. These raises will go into effect for the 2025-26 school year.