Trio of North Union retirees honored
North Union celebrated the retirement of three staff members at the board of education meeting Monday night. Each of the staff members celebrated nearly a decade with the district and nearly three decades in education. Pictured from left to right are Superintendent Rich Baird, Special Education Dire...
North Union celebrated the retirement of three staff members at the board of education meeting Monday night. Each of the staff members celebrated nearly a decade with the district and nearly three decades in education. Pictured from left to right are Superintendent Rich Baird, Special Education Director Dar Allison and Middle School Principal Matt Burggraf.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Michael Williamson)
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North Union officials celebrated the retirements of three key district employees, roles the new superintendent said will be difficult to fill.
At the final 2023 board of education meeting Monday night, the group celebrated Rich Baird, retiring from his role as superintendent, Matt Burggraf retiring as middle school principal and Dar Allison retiring as the special education director.
Justin Ufferman, who left his role as principal of the high school to replace Baird, said that while he’s happy to see the three retire, the district is losing some “great people.” Ufferman shared comments with the board that he collected from staff members about the retirees.
“With three great people, such great professionals, it becomes hard to talk about how great they are,” he said. “I’ve appreciated all of their mentorship and all of their friendship in the short time we’ve had together.”
Ufferman shared comments with the board that he collected from staff members about the retirees.
“When I think of Rich, I think of all the compassion and service he has shown in this community. I’m so glad I got to work with Rich,” said Jennifer Willis, counselor in the district, in a statement. “Rich always puts the students first. I wish Rich well in his next chapter and thank you for your service.”
Baird came to the district eight years ago as superintendent and will be officially retired on Dec. 31.
Staff members said similar things of Burggraf and Allison.
“He was always extremely accommodating and supportive. He told his staff, ‘Parents give us the best kids they’ve got,’” said Melissa Nichols, a middle teacher, of Burggraf. “He lived by the words he spoke and he was very patience with students.”
Staff members highlighted Allison’s dedication to the elementary school students.
“Dar, thank you for impacting the lives of our students, community and the North Union school district,” said NUES Principal Brent Markham in a statement. “Your countless dedication and hard work, time spent and support for the elementary school was incredible.”
All three staff members are retiring after nearly three decades in education, a third of which has been spent at North Union.
Since Ufferman was approved for the superintendent role, Keith Conkling, the current assistant high school principal was approved to move into the role of principal of the high school.
Also at the meeting, the board heard from Sandy Richards, North Union’s chief academic officer, about a new equipment grant the district is pursuing.
“The Career Technical Education Equipment Grant was due Friday and so we submitted for that. We requested $400,000 for that, of which $285,000 would be just for equipment with FANUC (Fuji Automatic Numerical Control),” she said. “We would be purchasing six robots, three of them would be the FANUC arms.”
She said those would be available to the upper level students with more experience working with the equipment. Exposure to that technology will also allow those students to graduate with additional credential points.
“The other robots are the cobot robots(collaborative robot), which have more safety features,” Richards said. “We would be able to use those with our middle school students and then freshmen and sophomores.”
If the grant is received, the remaining $115,000 would go toward things like programming and training of staff so that students don’t have to go to Tri-Rivers Career Center to be tested. Money would also go to coding for elementary school students so program could be school wide.
Richards said the district should know by late January whether it would be awarded or not.
“We pushed to have this done now because (the state) decided not to hold any of the funds for the second round applications, so they have $100 million. If they spend it all with this first round, it’s gone. So we wanted to make sure we had our application in to move forward with this.”