After a 37-minute executive session, Jason Sternberger’s contract was renewed for the 2024-25 year by a unanimous vote of the Hennessey Board of Education.

The move was made Monday night during the board’s regular December meeting.

Sternberger was hired in 2021, replacing retiring Superintendent Dr. Mike Woods.

Sternberger’s contract, which takes effect July 1, 2024, was renewed at $162,240.

That’s is a 4% raise from his current $156,000 salary on a contract that runs through June 30, 2024.

Members of the board present were President Luke Lough, Vice President Dr. James Matousek, David Tillman and Amy Charmasson.

Also at the board table was Timberly Jech, office manager/ board minutes clerk and Sternberger.

Staff audience members were Principals Joshua Faulkner (high school) Stacey Mack (early childhood) and Barry Crosswhite ( elementary); Jack Quirk, videographer, and Doyle Miller who is running for school board.

Miller filed for the seat currently held by Charmasson, who also filed for the seat last week.

ACT Profile Report

Faulkner discussed the ACT Profi le Report for the graduating class of 2023, containing a total of 42 students. The report compares the scores of the last five graduating classes, with each year showing a steady rise. The report includes a dropout rate, but, as explained by Faulkner, when a student transfers out of your district and moves out of state, the state no longer tracks these students and they are listed as “dropout.”

Faulkner will submit a DVR to account for these students and they will no longer be included as a dropout.

Matousek asked if Faulkner knew the percentage of Hennessey students that take the ACT and go on to attend a university.

Faulkner said he didn’t have the exact numbers, but would guess it to be around 80%.

Faulkner added that in this year’s graduating class, there are a lot more interested in CareerTech, so this year’s percentage looks a lot different from last year.

Since 2017, the state has funded and required all 11th grade students to take either the ACT or SAT.

The school pays for all juniors to attend a fall and spring ACT prep workshop at Northern Oklahoma College in Enid or Tonkawa to help prepare them for the test.

New Lighting in Auditorium

There will soon be all new lighting in the district’s auditorium.

They will be installing ETC lighting in the entire theater which includes the wall lights, theater and the catwalk.

Kaleb Hladik with Farmers Electric was at the meeting to answer any questions.

Hladik said these will all be LED lighting and will also include all new controllers. Quirk added that all this lighting is RGB, meaning that the colors can be changed at a touch of a button.