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PHOTO BY MEGAN BACHMAN On Monday, April 5, Yellow Springs Schools opened for five-day, in-person instruction following a month in which the schools adopted a part-time, hybrid model after nearly a year of online learing. Above, kindergarten teacher Jeannanne Turner-Smith engaged her students, who were masked and separated by plexiglas partitions. YE L LOW SPR INGS NEWS 2 0 2 1 Y E A R I N R E V I E W DECEMBE R 30 , 2021 PAGE 9 Village schools CONT INUED FROM THE FRONT PAGE 1 sweater VS. ≠ 52 issues of the YELLOW SPRINGS NEWS ANNUAL RAT ES : Yellow Springs (45387 zip code) ....................$55 Elsewhere................................$65 Electronic edition, anywhere in the world .......$65 9-month student rate...........$45 SUBSCRIBE ONL INE : ysnews.com/subscribe Or send a check to Yellow Springs News P.O. Box 187, Yellow Springs, OH 45387 Please indicate a gift subscription and include the address of the recipient Both are about 55 bucks . Y E L LOW S P R I NGS NEWS (937) 767- 7373 • www.ysnews.com But that’s where the similarity ends. The News comes 52 times a year. It mails itself. You never have to wrap it. And it’s never the wrong size or color. (in fact, it’s black and white) GIVE A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION Each week, you can be sure that someone will be looking forward to the award-winning independent newspaper which has been covering the life and times of the Yellow Springs community for over 140 years. There’s also the ELECTRONIC EDITION for those who prefer to read online, or who would like to receive their News at the same time as the Yellow Springs locals! BE SAFE WITHOUT BEING SORRY Subscribe today! Springs Fearless Forensic Festival, con- ducted online Saturday, Jan. 30. • In February, Mills Lawn Elementary School commemorated Black Histor y Month, adopting the theme “Here and Now: The Power of Words,” which highlighted the Black Lives Matter movement and the recent surge in youth-led activism after the violent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans. Then- senior Galen Sieck qualified for the June national competition in Speech & Debate. • In March, the school board returned to in-person meetings, which have been conducted since then in the Mills Lawn gym. The superintendent outlined a new strategic plan that included a focus on academic rigor and on issues of equity. The board also unanimously approved the sale of a strip of land along the southern edge of the middle/high school campus for the construction of a bike path connecting East Enon Road and the Agraria farm property. The Village agreed to purchase the parcel for $60,000, plus attorney and survey fees, with the understanding that Agraria will make payments on the selling price over the next 15 years. • Yellow Springs High School began the month of April by hosting a skating party for the class of 2021 in the high school gym, providing pizza, drinks and roller skates. Also in April, Mills Lawn Principal Michelle Person announced her intention to resign at the end of the school year, after a single year with the district. • In May, the annual third-grade bike hike was renamed the Dan Carrigan Memo - rial Bike Hike to honor the local bike enthu - siast and Mills Lawn supporter, who died suddenly in January. The board approved hiring Megan Winston, an assistant princi - pal at Xenia High School, as the new Mills Lawn principal, effective Aug. 1. The high school prom was held outdoors, hosted by the Wirrig family at their pavilion. The district treasurer reported that revenues had been higher and expenses lower than anticipated, enough that a projected deficit for 2024 would be delayed by a year. • The high school commencement ceremony May 27 recognized 59 graduat - ing seniors in an outdoor ceremony on the school lawn, preceded by a car parade through town. Kayla Ross and Natalie Galarza represented the class of 2021 as speakers, and school board member Steve McQueen gave the commencement address. • Longtime teachers Vickie Hitchcock, Peg Morgan, Desirée Nickel and Jody Pet - tiford retired at the end of the school year, joining Linda Kalter, who had retired at the beginning of the calendar year. • Summer school began in June, with an extended selection of art and outdoor course offerings in addition to traditional remedial classes. • In July, the district approved the hiring of Joy Feola as the new assistant principal at the middle/high school, after the resigna - tion of Cameron McCoy. The district also honored Stacey and Steve Wirrig with the presentation of the Bulldog Backer Award for their ongoing support of the schools. • The school board approved a resolu - tion in July decrying efforts in the Ohio Legislature to limit equity education in public schools. • A new school year began Aug. 23 with students returning to their classrooms, the first in-person start in two years. • In September, District Treasurer Tammy Emrick announced her retirement effective Dec. 31; and the board approved a new five-year contract for Superintendent Holden. • October saw the impending election dominate the news, with the facilities levy on the ballot and five candidates — Dorothée Bouquet, Luisa Bieri Rios, Judith Hemp - fling, Amy Magnus and Pam Nicodemus — running for three seats on the school board. Bouquet, Bieri Rios and Nicodemus sup - ported the levy. Hempfling and Magnus ran on a platform that included a call for school renovation over new construction. • The annual district repor t cards released by the state in October showed a drop in many test scores, especially among third and fourth graders and suggested that the ongoing pandemic has had a pro - found effect on academic progress. • In November, Judith Hempfling, Amy Magnus and Dorothée Bouquet were elected to the school board. Board member Sylvia Ellison later announced her resigna - tion, after taking a position with the Greene County health department. She was in the middle of her third term on the board. • At a special school meeting Tuesday, Nov. 22, the school board approved Jacob “Jay” McGrath to replace district Treasurer Emrick, and also named Luisa Bieri Rios to fill the board seat vacated by Ellison’s resignation. • The board took actions at the end of the year to expand the pool of substitute teachers, in November increasing a sub’s pay to $120 a day and in December tem - porarily eliminating the requirement of having a bachelor’s degree. —Carol Simmons The Yellow Springs Development Cor - poration, or YSDC, completed its second year in 2021, debuting a website — ysdc. org — and by year’s end, adding a time for community comments during its monthly public meeting. Other highlights of the quasi-governmental group’s sophomore year included: • In January, the group welcomed a new voting member, realtor Shelly Blackman, to represent the community at large, and two ex officio members, Antioch Trustee Maureen Lynch, filling the vacancy left by Antioch President Tom Manley’s early retirement, and then-Chamber of Com - merce Interim Director Alexandra Scott, stepping in for former Chamber Director Karen Wintrow, who had moved out of state. Scott has since left the Chamber to take a position with Home, Inc., and her YSDC seat remains unfilled. Clifton Mayor Alex Bieri also became an official member of the board this year. • The group started the year with a discussion of “lessons learned” from the sale of Miami Township Fire-Rescue’s old Corry Street firehouse, which YSDC had facilitated on behalf of the Township. The decision to sell the property to Dave Chap - pelle’s holding company for a proposed comedy club and restaurant had elicited wider attention than members anticipated. While most members seemed to feel that the attention, prompted by Chap - pelle’s international fame, was positive for the village, Marianne MacQueen, then one of Village Council’s two representa - tives on the board, expressed concerns. MacQueen said she feared the impact of higher-income visitors and potentially new residents on the affordability of living here, and she expressed discomfort about not knowing Chappelle’s plans for a number of other properties, many downtown, that he’d recently purchased. After the Yellow Springs News reported on the discussion, YSDC President Lisa Abel wrote a letter to the editor saying that some comments expressed during the January meeting had not been appropriate, referring to, but not naming, MacQueen. Abel then shared the letter at the next YSDC meeting in Feb - ruary. Several members spoke in agree - Y E L L O W S P R I N G S D E V E L O P M E N T C O R P O R A T I O N ment with Abel, but MacQueen defended her comments. By June, MacQueen had resigned her YSDC membership, telling the News that she didn’t feel she could be effective, as her intention in serving on the economic development group did not seem to align with its goals. In July, Village Coun - cil appointed Kevin Stokes to fill the YSDC seat that MacQueen had held. • Through the first part of the year, former YSDC member Patrick Lake con - tinued to serve as a liaison on exploratory talks concerning development of an “Edu - cation Corridor,” or “Education District,” involving collaborations between Antioch College, Yellow Springs Schools, the Com - munity Children’s Center and Agraria, and situated on property within and adjacent to the Antioch campus. The conversations were eventually put on hold after school district leaders decided they needed to move at a faster pace in their focus on district facilities, and that the piece of land being suggested for the schools was too small for their purposes. • In May, YSDC voted to form a subcom - mittee to explore the formation of an LLC for development purposes, earmarking $3,000 for the effort. • In June, the group approved giving a hardship deferral to the Chamber of Com - merce in paying its annual 2021 YSDC dues, which is $500 per representative. Members also voted to accept a proposal from Abel to hire an architect on retainer, agreeing to employ Earl Reeder Associates. Costs would include a $500 fee plus $175 per hour of work, with hourly engagement not to exceed $1,000. In addition, YSDC members agreed to give $1,000 to the McKee Group toward its effort to finance a new cost of living survey of the village, to be compiled by Wright State University, based on the latest Census data. Total cost of the effort is $15,000, according to infor - mation shared with YSDC. • At the group’s July meeting, YSDC voted unanimously to move forward with establishing a for-business loan fund, agreeing not only to form a subcommittee to develop the program, but also to work with the credit union on the details and to request $500,000 in seed money from the Community Foundation. • In a special meeting Friday, July 23, the YSDC voted unanimously to partner with Antioch College in reopening the Wellness Center, which had been shuttered since the beginning of the pandemic. The college and YSDC issued a press release the following Monday that announced the formation of the partnership and their hope to reach a management agreement by the end of August. In the initial plan, YSDC was to create a subsidiary to manage the cen - ter’s operations; the subsidiary would not take over ownership of the building or pay rent to the college for use of the property. YSDC then formed two subcommittees to move forward with planning, but had no new updates as it waited for Antioch to sign the management agreement. In a letter to the editor published Nov. 4, the college’s new president, Jane Fernandes, wrote that college leadership had decided to operate the Wellness Center on its own, nullifying a YSDC partnership. • Plans for a community picnic on July 29 fell through when the weather didn’t cooperate. • On the request of the Yellow Springs Schools district, the YSDC in September agreed to work in partnership with district leaders “to help shape the future” of the nearly nine-acre Mills Lawn Elementary School site, should the district no longer need it for a school. The agreement included providing assistance in exploring options for the Mills Lawn building and site; accepting a pass-through grant administered by the YS Community Foundation to cover costs; and creating a subcommittee to oversee the project, including securing a project man - ager and consultants. Concerns in the com - munity about the anonymous sources of the Community Foundation grant, the absence of public discussions by either the YSDC or school board leading up to YSDC’s vote and the timing of the initiative before the Nov. 3 election led the group to vote in October to discontinue the effort, with the possibility of returning to it should the facilities levy pass. In November, after the levy’s defeat, the group agreed to dissolve further efforts regarding the Mills Lawn site. —Carol Simmons