The Fairmont School Board on Tuesday made more changes in their administrative staff for the coming school year. They approved the employment of current high school principal Kim Niss, as principal of curriculum, instruction and research for grades E-12 for the 2019-20 school year.
The board approved the employment of Alex Schmidt and Jake Tietje to serve as co-principals at the Fairmont High School next school year. Both Schmidt and Tietje are past graduates of Fairmont High School.
Alex Schmidt previously served as dean of students at the Fairmont Elementary School and then served as vice principal from 2015-2017 at Black Forest Academy Middle School in Kandern, Germany. Since returning to Fairmont in 2017, Schmidt has been serving as an instructional coach.
Jake Tietje served as Fairmont High School’s dean of students/activities director from 2010-2013. Since 2013 he has served as the high school principal for Windom Area Schools.
The board made several approvals for employment:
Linda Hughes as an ELL teacher.
Melissa Luhmann as a high school English teacher.
Fiona Edberg as an English teacher.
Matt Lytle as a special education teacher.
Josie Sodersten as a reading, financial literacy, gifted and talented teacher.
Josiah Passe as a high school science teacher.
The board approved a memorandum of understanding for instruction of dual period classes for the 2019-20 school year. As per the teacher contract, teachers at the high school teach five hours a day with one period of prep and one period of supervision such as study hall, lunch duty, bus duty or other supervision. If a teacher agrees to teach a dual period class by May 17, next school year they will not be assigned any supervision duties.
The board approved another memorandum of understanding that will modify the Fine Arts matrix of the extra-curricular salary schedule to include Trapshooting in the master agreement between the district and Education Minnesota Fairmont. Effective for the 2019 trapshooting season, the head coach of the team, Todd Segar, will be placed on step four of the Fine Arts matrix with a stipend of $1,464.
