10/29/2025

Defiance DD board receives grant for upgrade project in kitchen area

Wendy Bryant Scheurich

The Defiance County Board of DD learned it has received a grant for a project in the school’s cafeteria/kitchen during its meeting Tuesday.

The board received $5,000 from the Defiance Area Foundation for the community grant to upgrade counters in the cafeteria kitchen area, said Good Samaritan School Superintendent Heidi Hull. She said the grant would be used to replace some iPods for the classrooms, also.

Too, a grant application is being completed though the Ohio Emergency Management Agency called the state of Ohio security grant. This grant would be used for the PA system upgrade, security cameras and other security upgrades, same as the federal Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant applied for earlier. Hull said no word has been received on the status of the COPS grant yet due to the government shutdown.

Work is also continuing on the ECE grant that was open to preschool students.

Meanwhile, Hull recognized the Special Olympics flag football team for taking second place recently at the state tournament in Columbus.

In the area of marketing and publications, it was reported that some paid advertising will be placed on social media, and a referral form will be made available online to make the application process faster and more efficient.

In other business, the board:

• was reminded of the spring screening dates for Defiance County on Feb. 23 in Hicksville and on March 9 in Defiance.

• accepted the retirement resignation of Bernie Herr, facilities and transportation manager, effective Jan. 1.

• learned from an Early Intervention representative that 48 individuals are enrolled and 12 enrollments are pending. In September there were five referrals and one exit.

• was informed that service support administration caseloads totaled 248 this month with 256 last month.

• was updated on personnel. Two new Service Support Administration (SSA) employees have started and working on completing training required to obtain certification. A bus driver candidate was sent to the pre-service training class.

• heard that since January there have been 41 new referrals for individuals ages 3 and older, with 10 found eligible, four ineligible, six terminated for lack of follow through and 21 pending. Also, 24 “major unusual incidents” were reported since January with four currently open for Defiance County. This compares to 37 at this time last year.

• moved the next board meeting from Nov. 19 to Nov. 25 at 5:15 p.m.

• went into executive session to discus compensation of public employees and collective bargaining. Then approved the principal, custodian/maintenance and part-time custodian position descriptions and table of organization, effective Dec. 31.

• approved other administrative and personnel matters.