As another school year begins to wind down, there are plenty of student accomplishments to celebrate. At the April meeting of the Callaway Board of Education a few of those accolades were acknowledged, including the 10 National FCCLA qualifiers and the state speech champion, along with those who participated in State FFA. It is a positive way to begin each board meeting that has become a standard at CPS.

During his report to the board, Superintendent J.D.

Furrow summarized the district’s external visit review.

“Through Nebraska’s Rule 10 for accreditation you have to have a school improvement plan which is on a five year cycle. At the end of the cycle they send a team out to review your process, so that team came in and spent a day and a half,” Furrow explained. “We are obviously doing some very good things because our assessment scores continue to rise and our attendance continues to rise and they commended us for high quality instruction by our teachers. They encouraged us to try to get our community members and board members more involved in committee work.”

Callaway Public School was recently the site of a training exercise involving the Custer County Sheriff’s Office. Different scenarios were reenacted in the building - without students present - to give both law enforcement and school administration tools and practice in dealing with potential situations that everyone hopes will never arise.

One of the few action items on the board agenda involved some updates to the board member code of ethics policy. “They really wanted to hone in on the board/superintendent relationship, and to help set the expectations for the board,” Furrow shared.

The board also discussed their goals for the upcoming school year.

Wages for the district’s classified staff were also discussed. “Most of the classified staff wages are on tables, and the tables go up three percent each year,” said Furrow. Because of some changes in staffing with new employees coming in at a lower pay scale than those who are leaving, the district is looking at spending about $7,000 less in classified staff wages next year than this year.

The meeting concluded with an item not often seen in the district - teacher resignations. Science teacher Lynette Svenson and math teacher Darin Ellis are both retiring at the end of this school year.

“Between the two of them they have committed almost 70 years to our school,” said Furrow. “I’m happy for them to take their next step, but filling their shoes is going to be really tough.”

One of those positions has now been filled, as following the resignations the board approved the hiring of John Klemmensen as the 7-12 math teacher for the 2026-27 school year. He has spent the last three years teaching in Columbus, and Furrow said he is very excited to have him joining the CPS staff.