Husted resigns from Board of Education to teach

The Blackwell Board of Education is gearing up for the 2022-2023 school year. The board met Monday night to finalize several routine financial matters and to hire teachers and staff.

The board also accepted the resignation of board member Stacey Husted, who held the District No. 3 seat.

Later in the meeting, the board voted to hire her as a reading teacher at Blackwell Elementary School.

The board approved, among other items, new courses to be added to the 8th grade curriculum at Blackwell Middle School.

The courses “Music History” and “Family and Consumer Science” will count toward high school credit. The board also added that biotechnology courses taken at Pioneer Technology Center in Ponca City will count as a science course for the ACT CORE curriculum, and they will count as electives on the ACE College Prep / WorkReady curriculum.

The board then accepted the resignations of Blackwell Elementary School paraprofessional Teresa Jones and Blackwell Middle School science teacher and coach Derek Martinez.

The board hired Colby O’Donnell as a Blackwell High School special education teacher and coach, Dakota Donaldson as the district technology director, Paula Diedrich as an elementary school special education paraprofessional, Tianna Tattershell as an elementary school paraprofessional, Husted as an elementary school reading teacher and Christopher Dysinger as an elementary school custodian.

Nikole Flying-Out was hired as the board’s minutes clerk.