Earlier this week, the Icon provided a preview of items on the Bluffton Exempted Village School board of eduction agenda for its March 20 meeting. All items requiring board approval, including financial transactions, minutes of the prior meeting and contracts, were passed with unanimous support.

Here we’ll report on some of the discussions not previewed on the meeting’s agenda:

Technology coordinator Mardy Herr reported on three phishing tests of the school staff. Phishing is fraudulent email that appears to be from a reputable source, but in fact seeks to gain wrongful access to confidential information such as passwords and credit card numbers. Herr’s recent test resulted in a 98% success rate. He noted that this was a big improvement over an earlier test that had a 32% failure rate.

Maintenance supervisor Mike Wilson reported on outdoor work to get ready for baseball and softball seasons. This upcoming weekend marks the first Bluffton High School baseball game at Village Park. He said that Monday was the first day of mowing the fields and that “when you take the top brown off, it looks green.” Wilson is also working on plans for improving the turf on Harmon Field. He has plans to fraze mow the field, a technique that helps remove invasive grasses that die back in hot weather. He is consulting with others experience in athletic field maintenance and has a new certification through the Ohio Turf Foundation.

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Middle school principal Josh Kaufmann announced that the school will host a First Responders Breakfast on March 31 in remembrance of Bluffton Police Officer Dominic Francis, who was killed in the line of duty on March 31, 2022. The event is an appreciation of the police, fire, EMS and other personnel who put their lives on the on line for their communities.

Superintendent Greg Denecker had two special guests at the meeting to introduce an international partnership being formed with Ogawa High School in Japan. Bluffton High School was invited to be part of the partnership by Hiroaki Kawamura, associate professor and director of Modern Languages at the University of Findlay. Some 24 Bluffton High School students have signed up to be part of this program.

Kawamura and Yuki Miyahara, 2022-23 Ohio Saitama University (OSUS) scholarship recipient at the University of Findlay met with the Bluffton students earlier in the day and provided the board with a presentation on Saitama Prefecture, Ogawa Township and Ogawa High School. A separate report on this presentation will be provided on the Icon.