LEWISBURG — During the Lewisburg Chamber of Commerce’s State of the Village event on Thursday, Sept. 21, Tri-County North Local Schools Superintendent Bill Derringer shared some important things happening this school year.

“Thank all of you for being here tonight, and for what you do for the Tri County North community, whether it’s Lewisburg, Verona, or just the entire area,” Derringer said. All organizations, I believe, have to develop core values or core beliefs and Tri-County North School District is no different in that regard.

“We have academic core beliefs, yes,” Derringer said, noting what he really wanted was the third core belief dealing with “relationships.”

“As I sit here tonight and listen to the speakers that we’ve already had, it’s very clear, and it just comes to the forefront, that the relationships that we have in this community are what really makes Lewisburg a great place to be.”

“I just wanted to talk about a couple things that are happening starting this year. The first thing I want to mention is school spirit. We had a group of community members of parents of some of our youth that got talking, I believe maybe down at a peewee field or at the summer baseball leagues. I don’t know where those conversations developed. But I know that outstanding things are happening because of those conversations. One of the things is that all students now at Tri-County North are getting into all of our athletic events, all of our events are free.

“And athletics are not cheap for schools. I mentioned to my board the other night that it cost us over $20,000 last year just in officials. And so, you have to take in some revenue to be able to buy football helmets or basketballs, or baseball bats or whatever. So this group in a matter of about a week and a half generated over $7,500 and donated that to our school district so that we can allow all of our kids to come in free to all of the events, in trying to promote school spirit. I think that is outstanding,” Derringer said.

The group is also working on a “Spirit Shop” where spirit wear items will be sold as well.

“This group has done a wonderful thing. So I do want to thank them,” Derringer said, noting there were too many donors to mention individually.

A joint parking lot project between the school board in the village is making a difference for the village and school district. “That parking lot not only will be used for our athletic events, but also peewee events and the peewee practices and the baseball games in the summer. We did connect it to the bike path down there,” Derringer said. And they tied that in so you can actually park in that parking lot and have access to the paths down there without crossing over any mud or grass or anything. So that was an outstanding project for us.”

“We did receive and most schools did if they applied, it wasn’t a real hard grant to get, we received $300,000 last year when the governor put out his school safety grant,” Derringer said. “And with that, we were able to put in a lot of security cameras, lighting, a mechanism for opening the gate down at the bus garage. We put some sensory things in the school like vape detectors and things of that sort. So a lot of different things to try to help out with school safety.”

“I want to mention we added a preschool last year with the intention of having two classrooms. And last year when we started that we had about 20 kids involved in the preschool. This year we capped it at 32 kids, 16 per classroom. And so, the preschool that we have in-school, along with Panther Prep, along with Kids Connection, along with Headstart — we have an awful lot of incoming kindergarteners next year and for years to come that are that are getting some type of education or some type of preschool that is only going to help all of us in the long run as well.”

Derringer also touched on the recently released school district report cards. “We looked at those, we analyze those, our teachers try to break down data, our administrators are looking at those. As far as Preble County goes, we were second highest in the county, I believe behind Eaton. But we’re still falling short when we compare to Montgomery County and when we compare to Darke County. So we’ve got work to do. We know that. But we are moving in the right direction in those areas and looking forward to big things with that.”

Derringer also reminded those in attendance a renewal measure for the district’s 1 percent school district earned income tax will appear on the Nov. 7 election ballot. “It generates about $1.3 million for our district. And that money is used for operating expenses, which is everything from diesel fuel for our buses, to paper supplies to paying the electric bill and so forth, as well as salaries and benefits for all of our employees,” he said.

(Editor’s note: This is the third piece in a series of articles presenting the updates provided at Lewisburg’s State of the Village event.)

Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on X @emowenjr.