Lyons School 103 just promoted four current staff members to new positions.
On May 14 the Lyons-Brookfield District 103 Board of Education voted 4 to 1 to make Home School Principal Kim Ontiveros the district’s new Human Resource Director, a position that has been vacant since former HR director Marty Stack left last year.
Since then, a lower-level district employee has handled HR responsibilities, but that person is resigning now that Ontiveros has been hired.
The board also promoted three longtime technology support employees to 12-month administrative positions.
Ontiveros has been the principal at Home School, which is in Stickney, for the last seven years. Her departure from Home School means the district will have to hire three new elementary school principals over the summer.
The school board was expected vote on a new principal for George Washington Middle School at its May 29 meeting, after the Landmark’s print deadline.
In December, Ontiveros received a doctorate in education from National Louis University, with a superintendent’s endorsement.
Ontiveros said that she has wanted to work in HR for some time.
“It’s actually been a goal of mine for many years,” Ontiveros said.
Ontiveros received a two-year contract and will be paid $115,000 a year.
She said she plans to do much of the preliminary work in recruiting teachers and evaluating teacher applicants, work principals have been doing.
“I’m trying to help the principals,” Ontiveros said. “In the past, the principals used to have to post their own jobs.”
Only two of the five current principals in District 103, Jan Bernard at Edison School and Al Molina at Robinson School, will be returning to their jobs next year. Ontiveros said she is working with both to help interview and select new principals for the district and said she’ll have an active role in mentoring the new principals hired this summer.
Board member Joanne Schaeffer cast the only vote against hiring Ontiveros as HR director, saying afterward that she thought the salary was too high.
Ontiveros had been making $99,568 as a principal, according to information posted on the district’s web site.
The school board voted 3 to 2 to hire longtime technology support specialist Michael Crowley as technology director, a post vacant since John Williamsen, resigned last summer. Crowley will be paid $77,000 a year.
Board members Jorge Torres and Michael Bennett voted against Crowley’s hire.
The district’s two other longtime technology support specialists are also getting promotions to newly created positions. Vivian Chodor has been named the district’s data and communications administrator and Dean Elzinga will become the district’s network administrator.
Both Chodor and Elzinga will be paid $74,000 annually in their new 12-month positions.
Torres was the only board member to vote against promoting Chodor and Elzinga to their new positions.
School board president Marge Hubacek said that Crowley, Chodor, and Elzinga did great work this year.
“They kept us afloat all year,” Hubacek said. “They kept us going without a technology director.”
