NV, CAM to likely continue sharing

Editor’s Note: The below story is revised to state more clearly that CAM has not made a decision yet on who it will share with, but it will continue planning with NV, with an official decision to be declared later.

The Cumberland-Anita-Massena (CAM) school board made it known to Nodaway Valley’s school board in a meeting Monday, Jan. 6 in Anita that they would like to move toward continuing to share staff positions.

NV’s board were guests at CAM’s meeting. It was not officially a joint meeting.

The two districts operationally share six positions: librarian, superintendent, school business official, maintenance, accounts payable/human resources and payroll. Of these, payroll and librarian are the only two that do not have operational sharing funding tied to them.

At last check, the CAM board wanted more time to discuss their needs going forward, so this meeting was held as a follow-up. The main item of discussion was sharing a superintendent.

CAM will make an official determination later for who they would like to share a superintendent with.

The CAM board shared with Nodaway Valley that they have a need to share positions with someone, partially due to the financial benefit the move has for small school districts. A weighting system that includes points for each position shared gives nine points for sharing a superintendent — the most of any position — and districts can share positions up to 21 points on that weighting system. NV and CAM currently share 21 points in positions.

Communication between both boards and a defined percentage of salary responsibility are two factors still needing to be worked out as the districts move forward.

All but one of the CAM board members plan to attend a Nodaway Valley board meeting Wednesday, Jan. 15, where the boards will interview prospective search firms that can help them find their next superintendent. A joint meeting will again be held Jan. 22 in Massena where conversations can continue farther.

The Nodaway Valley board terminated Paul Croghan’s superintendent contract upon its expiration at the end of this fiscal year. The two school districts had been sharing a superintendent since before Croghan was hired and other positions were later added to the list of shared positions.