By HEATHER HARTSELL
Leader staff writer
The Cabot School Board has voted unanimously to extend Superintendent Dr. Frank Holman’s contract for an additional year, through 2009-2010. Holman is paid more than $163,000 a year, plus about $20,000 in benefits. He has been superintendent of Cabot schools since 2002, and in 2003 was one of the highest paid superintendent in the state at $150,000 a year.
According to David Hipp, school board president, Holman’s contract extension was routine: As a rule, most superintendents, when they are hired, have a three-year contract; after each year it rolls over into another year to keep a three-year contract.
“The board feels pleased to have him,” Hipp said of Holman. “He is a big asset to us, really admired by his peers, and is a good man to have, especially in this time with all that is going on with the insurance and Cabot Junior High North. He has been outstanding working with them to get something done.”
Holman was also given an $812 raise at the Dec. 19 meeting, as were all other administrators in the district, Hipp said.
According to Kelly Hayes, comptroller for the Cabot School District, the administrators re-ceived a raise of between $580 to $812 per year, depending on the degree level they hold, using the same concept used for teachers’ raises given earlier in the school year.
“We added $450 to the base of the schedule for 190-day teachers, making their raise between $450 and $630 depending on the degree level they hold. We did the same for the administration that works a 245-day contract,” Hayes said. “The administrators got more of a raise because they work more days than teachers,” he added. Assistant Superintendent Jim Dalton reported the progress of the district’s current building projects – the Fine Arts Complex, CHAMPS Hall and Stagecoach Elementary.
Dalton said last week that the Fine Arts Complex should be completed within the next week or two, and would then be turned over to the custodians for a good cleaning up. “We should be in within a month,” Dalton said of the $1.8 million, 28,000-square-foot Fine Arts addition. The addition includes two art classrooms with an outdoor patio facing Panther Stadium, a computer lab, choir room with built-in risers, a band rehearsal hall, three practice rooms, a storage room for instruments and uniforms, two large classrooms and a “black box” theater for small plays. At Stagecoach Elementary, the district’s new 83,313-square-foot, $6.6 million elementary school near Campground and Stagecoach roads, the building footings have been poured and the utilities wired to the site.
“They’ve started pouring the slab, but each day of rain delays the pour,” Dalton said. Exterior work on CHAMPS Hall is almost completed, Dalton said. “The company is short on metal and has been dragging their feet on getting more in,” Dalton said.
In other business:
The board approved the Academic Center of Excellence Charter Renewal that will be presented to the State Board of Education this month.
The district will need to rezone the schools because of growth. Dr. Holman said that preparation has begun and more information would be provided monthly.
Dr. Holman also told the board in December that the insurance company was stalling on moving forward with replacing Junior High North and went over all the steps taken since Aug. 10 for resolving the stalemate.
