In action at last Monday night’s Hennessey Board of Education meeting, two returning teachers were rehired and one new teacher/coach was hired.

All were hired on temporary contracts.

Lezlie (Zielny) Hardin returns to Hennessey Public Schools after five years. She will teach seventh grade language arts and also be in charge of the seventh and eighth grade honors program.

She taught second and third grades at Hennessey from 2001-15 and was named a District Teacher of the Year and a member of the 2008-09 State Superintendent’s Master Teacher Program.

In 2015, Hardin started teaching kindergarten at St. Joseph Catholic School in Enid and taught there until this year.

Her first teaching job was at Rosary Catholic School in Oklahoma City where she taught second and sixth grades.

Hardin is a 1994 HHS graduate; earned her bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Central Oklahoma in 1998 and her master’s from UCO in 2005. She has had extensive work with ELL students.

She is married to Dagan Hardin, also an HHS grad. They live in Hennessey and have two sons, Jessin, 13, and Barrit, 10.

Aly Seng of Enid was the new hire. She was hired as an adjunct physical education teacher for the high school.

She will also coach girls basketball.

She has been the head girls golf coach and assistant girls basketball coach and head junior varsity and ninth grade coach at Chisholm Public School since 2018.

Seng has also been the assistant golf professional and director of instruction at Oakwood Country Club since the summer of 2010.

She was the head boys and girls golf coach at Oklahoma Bible Academy in Enid in the spring of 2017.

The Enid High School grad anticipates getting her master’s in adult higher education this December from UCO.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from UCO in 2013 and was a collegiate golf athlete there. She has passed the OGET, OSAT and OPTE and has an alternative teacher certification.

Frances (Miller) Streck was rehired, and will teach high school physical science this fall. She taught seventh and eighth grade science in Hennessey last year and is a 2001 HHS grad.

Administrator contracts

The board took no action on agenda topic regarding contracts for the superintendent and principals’ contracts for the fall school year.

All had been rehired earlier this year.

Superintendent’s report

The board again this month got a gloomy, and quick, report from the superintendent on finances. “Gross production taxes dropped $82,000 this month,” Dr. Mike Woods said, “and we have no state aid to fall back on. We have to absorb the loss. We have to lose $3.5 million before we are eligible for state aid.”

Hennessey received about $3.3 million in gross production revenue last school year. With only one more month to go for this fiscal year, the school has gotten $2.9 million.

Woods said a sign is up so people can tell the school has an Early Childhood Center and also said he’d received coach Mike Driskill’s resignation notice about his retirement.

Three of the five board members were present onsite: President Dr. James Matthew Matousek, Luke Lough and Patrick Griffin.

Present via Zoom was Vice President Joe Garrison. Also at the board table

Also at the board table were Timberly Jech, recording clerk and office manager, and Woods.

Absent was board member Cristopher Choate.

School staff in the audience were Angela Avila, Stacey Schovanec, Matt Means, Todd Cameron, Allison Hurst, Kylee Warne and Jack Quirk. Also in the audience was David Tillman.