Monday night’s Fairbanks Board of Education meeting was the last one for members Dave Huber, Jaynie Lambert and president Chip Hubbs. They received plaques dedicated to their service after the meeting adjourned. Pictured are, left to right, Huber, Lambert and Hubbs.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Jacob Runnels)
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The Fairbanks Board of Education approved of new course offerings for the high school for the 2018-2019 school year at Monday night’s meeting.
Superintendent Bob Humble said these new courses will focus on technology in business and “dig deeper” into exploring science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) studies. He said there will also be more emphasis on media within technology studies.
“We’ve beefed up and added more technology into the business-related courses,” Humble said. “We’ve had business courses, but we’ve really pushed more technology because of the one-to-one program. They will be more technology-based as opposed to just business-based.”
Humble said the district is also working to incorporate Project Lead the Way (PLTW) into the middle school as another initiative to introduce more STEM studies to students.
He said the focus will be on robotics as well, and it was inspired by the continued effort to “expand our courses.” He said the push by President Trump to expand STEM education in schools also helped.
According to its website, PLTW is a program that “empowers students to develop and apply in-demand, transportable skills by exploring real-world challenges” through “computer science, engineering and biomedical science.”
“We’re in the discovery phase right about now, and we’re hoping to get that introduced in the program for the middle school next year,” he said.
According to the course offerings list for Fairbanks High School, five new business classes will be introduced, as well as six new media classes, most of them STEM-related.
Among the new business classes, the high school will now have classes for intro to business, accounting, business applications and video production, programming and strategic entrepreneurship.
Among the new media classes, the high school will now have classes for sports media web production, photography, game design, automation and artificial assistants, “special topics” and animation. All except for “special topics” and photography will be STEM-related.
After approving the new course offerings, the board then approved of the decision for the district to continue paying into the Ohio School Boards Association Legal Assistance Fund. The fund helps districts like Fairbanks pool together money for other districts for lobbying efforts and court cases.
Also at the meeting, the board wished a farewell to its departing members.
This was the last meeting for board members Dave Huber, Jaynie Lambert and president Chip Hubbs. They were all given plaques for their contributions.
“I have a great deal of respect for the work you do and I thank you for all the support we received and the relationships that we created and making new friends,” Hubbs said.
They will be replaced by Angie Bouic, Derek Nicol and Brian Phelps in 2018.
The board approved to make vice president Mark Lippencott the president pro tem, from Jan. 1 until the 2018 organizational meeting to review the budget. That meeting will be held on Jan. 10, starting at 6:30 p.m.