GF board discusses requesting millage increase, Gilmore says public will be well-informed

Residents will be highly informed about the facts and benefits of any possible millage increase needed to help address the dire condition of some of the aging facilities in the Green Forest School District.

That’s the goal of superintendent David Gilmore, who said the district is working to prepare information for the community that he hopes will be presented around the time the 2025-2026 school year gets underway next month.

The idea of a possible millage increase request was the main topic of discussion for the school board’s regular monthly meeting held Tuesday, July 15.

“We’re getting closer and we’re going to really push out a lot of information about the time school starts,” Gilmore said. “We’ve met with our representatives from Nabholz and our architect, things like that, and we are just trying to get together some literature and some facts to get it out there for people in the public.

“We plan to get into it pretty deeply next month.”

Buildings in the district are old, specifically the aging high school building, Gilmore said, and it’s important the community gets the full details of the situation and what it will take to make a new high school building a reality.

“We want to beat the misinformation that can get out there,” Gilmore said of materials he hopes to present to the community next month.

“People often hear rumors, or how things go, and they think [a possible millage] is going to be a lot more than it actually will.”

Gilmore said millage rates in the Green Forest district are low in comparison with other districts.

“What I’ve seen in a lot of comparisons, Green Forest actually has the lowest millage rate of anybody in the county and anybody in our athletic conference, too,” Gilmore said. “So, we’re pretty far behind on collecting those mills.

“The shape of the high school is getting in a lot worse shape over the years and we’re going to need something soon. We look forward to getting all that information out really soon.”

OTHER BOARD ITEMS

The Green Forest board once again approved the purchase of all basic school supplies for students for the upcoming year.  “We want to make sure that we buy those school supplies for the students so the parents aren’t out that burden,” Gilmore said. “The kids will have to get their own backpack, but we’re going to buy the everyday stuff like binders, pencils, paper, those kind of things.”

The board also approved the cost of using EZSchool Pay services for the upcoming school year as a more convenient way parents can pay for school lunches, Gilmore said.

“We’re just trying to get up to date with the times and have a way that parents can go online and pay their kids’ lunch bills and things like that online instead of having to bring it in,” the superintendent said. “They can still do it the old way and bring in a check or cash or whatever, but we’ll have that option now to do it online.”

The board also approved an auction, which was held Saturday, July 18, to sell off items the district no longer needed.

The district raised $10,000 during the sale, Gilmore said.

“We got rid of some things no longer needed,” he said. “We got rid of a couple of older school buses, a couple of older mowers that were about 10 years old. … Just various things around the campuses were auctioned off.”

The board also approved the transfer of Kelby Harness from middle school to high school Family Consumer Science teacher .

The school board held a special meeting on Tuesday, July 8, with the main vote to proceed with the purchase of a new mower.

The purchase of the mower was originally on the June monthly meeting agenda, but the board had questions that needed to be answered, so the decision was tabled until the July 8 special meeting, Gilmore said.

“The school board had a few questions about the mowers we already had that I didn’t have the answers for so we tabled it,” he said. “I was able to get the information that they needed and they decided to go ahead and purchase the mower.”

The Spartan Mower, which cost approximately $15,000, was purchased locally, Gilmore said.

“We try to support the Green Forest community as much as possible,” he said.

Also at the July 8 special meeting, the board approved the transfer of Janna Risenhoover from ninthgrade English Language Arts teacher to 12th grade English Language Arts/Advanced Placement.

Also approved was the transfer of Gayla Sparks to ninth grade English Language Arts from Family Consumer Science. Jerry Ma-Gee was approved as a substitute bus driver for the middle school summer reading program.