By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News

The Pontiac District #429 met last night and approved employment for summer staff as well as paraprofessionals and certified staff for the 2015-16 school year.

Superintendent Dale Adams said these measures are done yearly and with the seven retiring employees came new opportunities to hire staff for those and other new positions.

“They (retiring employees) create some positions. We also added a couple positions because we’ve started to reinstate some of the things that were taken out because of funding issues,” Adams said.

Another agenda item included the approval for Opperman Construction of Pontiac to do cement work around Lincoln School at the cost of $68,430, which will come from the schools’ capital projects fund.

“Along with that, there are several ancillary things that go with it. That road goes through where the playground is, so we’re going to have to take out equipment,” Adams said. “You can’t just take out old equipment and put it back in, because some of it is obsolete, so it (the work that needs to be done) just kind of snowballs as we go along.”

Mark Donovan was also seated as a new board member at the beginning of the meeting.

The next meeting will take place beginning at 6 p.m. June 29, beginning with the budget hearing and leading into the regular board meeting.