Newton County High School’s haunted house attraction the weekend before Halloween brought in about $10,000 for the school district.
The haunted house alone accounted for $6,040 of revenue while the carnival brought in another $3,100 and concessions accounted for another $500, said Superintendent J.O. Amis during the Newton County School Board’s regular meeting on Nov. 5.
Two-sevenths of the haunted house and all of the carnival and concessions revenue go to the school district to pay for the upgrades to the baseball/softball complex completed a few years ago. The remaining five sevenths of the haunted house are divided evenly between the baseball, softball, soccer, band and football programs since they provided volunteers for the haunted house.
This money was approved along with other donations, which included $559 from the tennis boosters and $200 for the basketball boosters.
The Newton County School Board also heard from a resident on Good Hope Road, who was seeking permission to put a mobile home on 16th section land.
Board president Jason Cain said the secretary of state’s office has directed school districts to stop issuing residential leases on 16th Section property, due to difficulties with some not paying taxes issued on the property and also because the school district can get additional money if they sell it for timber lands.
“We will take it under advisement,” Cain said. “The first thing is that we’d have to have a survey of the property. That will probably cost about $3,000, and you would need to be able to pay for it. Then, we’d have to submit it to the secretary of state’s office to see if we can do this.”
In other business, the board:
• Approved its claims docket, which included $27,000 in upgrades needed at the vo-tech center.
• Approved Section F o f the School Board Policies for 2018-2019, which was not changed from the previous year.
• Gave Celia Rohrer a supplement for being on the Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team.
• Hired Sarah Reese as a special education teacher.
• Hired Steve Harber on part-time status to be continue to be the high school basketball coach. He retired from teaching last year.
• Hired Sidney Cook as a substitute teachers and bus driver.
• Discussed changes to the slowpitch softball alignments and the MHSAA’s move to volleyball instead of slowpitch softball.
• Approved January field trips for some classes led by Jim Savell.
• Approved other items on the consent agenda, including minutes from Oct. 9 and 25, a revised fixed asset summary sheet and deleted several fixed assets and approval of 16th Section Items.
