BLANCHESTER —Blanchester Local Schools Superintendent Dean Lynch calls his contract renewal “bittersweet.”
With the school board voting 4-1 Monday evening in favor of the renewal, Lynch will continue as superintendent for the next year as well as from Aug. 1, 2018 to July 31, 2021. This came in spite of objections from local residents at the meeting.
“It’s nice to get my contract renewed, but it was somewhat bittersweet because of the nature of the meeting,” Lynch said.
He said he looks forward to continuing to work with his alma mater and he’s getting things ready for the new school year.
Several local residents spoke during the meeting, voicing opposition to Lynch having his contract renewed.
High school student Molly Campbell spoke after presenting the board with petition signatures she collected asking for Lynch’s resignation.
According to Campbell, the petition had been circulating for two days and contained more than 523 signatures. Due to short notice, they were only able to present 279 signatures. A copy of the petition will be sent to Ohio Department of Education when they’re done, she said.
“While going door-to-door last weekend, a woman yelled at me three times to go back to my own district,” Campbell said. “This rhetoric that bullying and harassment is OK is being perpetuated by Dean Lynch who continues to harass his administrators. Because of this and many other factors, he must go.”
Another speaker was Dwayne Dearth, one of nine locals planning to run for three spots in November’s school board election. He asked why the renewal was brought up now with Lynch’s Ohio superintendent’s license — which expired in June — still pending.
School Board President Keith Gibson brought up that Lynch “needs two-and-a-half years to get to retirement” and that they wanted to remove the renewal as an issue for the election this fall.
After the vote was completed, many attendees left, with one resident saying, “You’re as corrupt as you get” as the crowd left.
Another resident, who wished to remain anonymous, gave reasons why she was upset.
“It’s pretty sad, that the people we elect aren’t approachable,” she said. “I hope that a new school board will undo a lot of what they’ve done.” She added that she hopes the community can get behind three new candidates to support rather than spreading out the votes.
Of the nine district residents who have taken out petitions to run for school board, so far the only incumbent is Joe Falgner.
As of Tuesday, four have filed their petitions — Darlene Blanton, Dearth, Kathy Gephart, and Jack Long.
The next Blanchester School Board meeting will be Aug. 21 in the middle school cafeteria.
