St. Joseph School Board approves long range plan, discusses tax rates

By Jazmine Knight

The St. Joseph School District made a few decisions during the August 26th board meeting.

The board approved the long range plan with six votes in support and one member abstaining.

Superintendent, Gabe Edgar, says there’s still a lot of work to do over the next couple of months but he’s happy that the district can move onto planning the details.

“I really do think it was important to get over this finish line,” he said. “The next initiative is the board’s going to have to discuss if they want to put something on the ballot in April of 25’ or if they want to wait until April of 2026.”

Additionally, the district will have to establish locations for two brand new high schools when and if that time comes.

“We had a problem, a middle school model that was broken. I knew we had feeder patterns that did not make any sense. That’s what I wanted to fix,” said Edgar.

Edgar is looking forward to addressing questions and concerns from the public in the coming months possibly through community events. He says he understands both sides of the fence.

“You’re never going to make everybody happy,” Edgar said. “We just want to do what’s best for kids and we felt like administratively, we put a plan together to do just that.”

For the tax rate hearing, representatives from LJ Hart shared their projections. Robert Sigrist, assistant superintendent of business and operations, says the rates will be going up slightly thanks to proposition S that was passed earlier this month.

“We actually could have by statute raised it slightly more, but we kept it exactly the same as what was advertised in all the ballot language,” said Sigrist.

He would like to thank the community for passing the initiative. He believes this is something that is very important to district staff because it shows the community’s appreciation.

“If you talk to staff, the morale is up,” he said. “And I think that’s a big piece of it. They feel supported by the community.”

Sigrist also talked about his decision to retire from the district.

“It’s bittersweet,” Sigrist said. “I’ve been in Saint Joe’s community a long time. This is year 31, and I think it’s just time.”

Though he’s not sure what life has in store for him as he embarks on this new journey, Sigrist says he’ll miss the friendships he’s built along the way.

“We’ve been blessed to be able to serve with a lot of really good people,” said Sigrist.

For him, interacting with all the kids and staff was his favorite part of his job. He says it’s all about putting the interest of others first to make your community and your schools better.

“The relationships you have with people, that’s the primary piece of anything. I don’t care what job it is. But in this job, especially, relationships will be absolutely number one,” Sigrist said.