Farmington struggling to find Spanish teacher

By JEFF LAMPE
For The Weekly Post

FARMINGTON – A lack of Spanish teachers is not unique to the Farmington School District. But the nationwide issue is still a problem for Farmington with the school year starting in about one month.

School-board members heard from High School Principal Dennis McMillin about efforts to find a teacher to handle more advanced Spanish classes. McMillin said the district has a first-year teacher to instruct first-year students but doesn’t think it would be fair to ask that teacher to handle advanced studies.

“We’re still diligently looking for a Spanish teacher, but this is a problem many schools are facing,” McMillin said.

He said the district may need to pursue online studies with a paid service. In such a case, students would still gather in a classroom under the guidance of a monitor, but instruction would be done online.

Board President Alex Slack said aside from the Spanish teacher, overall staffing looks to be in good shape.

Personnel decisions approved Monday included hiring Ashley Monroe as a high school assistant volleyball coach, Elizabeth Kruzen as a cafe worker, Danishia Bloomer as a student facilitator, Justin Nelson as a long-term substitute teacher for special education and Jamie Frey as a bus driver.

The board also accepted resignations of Donovan Benson as junior high baseball coach, Joyce Batterton as bus monitor, Jorge Freyre as bus driver and Katie Wilson as student faciliator.

The board’s other main action on the evening consisted of approving bids for milk from Prairie Farms and bread from Alpha Baking Co. Both companies submitted the only bids for their products.

Asked about the lack of competition for the bids, Superintendent Zac Chatterton said, “It’s a bid process, I just wouldn’t call it a competitive bid process.”

The board also approved International Experience for any foreign exchange students in 2024-25 and heard that a German student is considering attending Farmington.

Chatterton reported to the board that the district was hoping to have a Bradley University intern help with Farmington’s social media efforts. He said members of the board visited the Sycamore School District last year because that school has been cited for its communication.

Chatterton said Sycamore televises football games with the help of students from Northern Illinois University and from its own students.

“This would be the first step towards that,” Chatterton said of the likely Bradley intern.
A group of more than 13 people also attended the meeting, apparently in support of district bus drivers regarding an unspecified issue. Bryan Devine, a field service director with the American Federation of Teachers, was in attendance and addressed bus drivers after the meeting.

In other business, the board approved:
• A resolution empowering Chatterton to prepare the Fiscal Year 2025 budget for expected action at the Aug. 12 board meeting.
• A risk-management plan that is unchanged from last year.