The Pleasant Valley School Board approved a new title for the Bears Academy’s principal - director of instructional technology and innovation.

In March 2023, Jason Van Voorhis shifted from being the principal of the middle school to becoming the school district’s first principal of its cyber academy.

On Thursday night, human resources director Lori Fulmer said Van Voorhis is still going to be the principal of the cyber school, but now he is adding this new role.

“We have a fantastic technology team in place. They handle things like hardware, a lot of the programming that we do. The piece that we thought was missing that Mr. Van Voorhis brings to the table, knowing that he took Bears Academy, is that integration of technology into the academic portion of it all,” Fulmer said.

Because Van Voorhis comes from a background as an educator and he is working on a doctoral degree, Fulmer said the school district wanted to take his ideas and not only use them in the cyber academy, but also with all of the students in the school district.

“He’s been doing this somewhat now,” she said. “He’ll be able to take the technology means for the students and match them to the academic piece.”

His new salary will be $120,000, which is a slight increase from the $117,000 he would be making as of July 1, Fulmer said.

The title change was approved by 6-1 vote, with John Gesiskie voting no. Two directors were absent from the meeting: Robert Clark and Melanie Zipp.

Other personnel items include:

• Change to current assignment - Carley Hartzell, school counselor, from PVES to PVHS;

• Hiring of support staff - Samantha Grando, secretary, PVIS, $32,786 (prorated), effective May 6;

• Intramural advisers - Football adviser, Blaec Saeger; with volunteers, Brian Miller and Joe Anderton, PVHS;

• Rescind hiring - Kaylee Wilson, school counselor, PVHS;

• Resignations - Corinne Morris, girls basketball, head coach, effective April 3; Dana Varone, monitor, PVMS, effective April 2; and Marlena Morrell, secretary, PVHS, effective April 19, and;

• Volunteers - William Bruckman, Kristi Green, Stephanie Green, Gwen Heckman Morris, Kristen Mackes, Laura Miller, Kayla Stevenson-Mullin, Rebecca Tippett, Laura Venturini and Vincent Zimbardo.