HOWLAND — The board of education had a busy meeting this week, approving a new three-year contract with the Howland Teachers Association, hiring a new treasurer after accepting the resignation of the district’s current treasurer and taking a step toward placing a $5 million, 10-year renewal levy on the November ballot.

The new contract with the Howland Classroom Teachers Association went into effect Friday and gives teachers a 3 percent raise this coming school year, followed by a 3.25 percent raise the next year and a 3.5 percent raise in the third year of the contract, according to Superintendent Kevin Spicher.

The contract also includes language changes related to intervention classes and changing class capacities and allows teachers a stipend from American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Relief funds, Spicher said.

Spicher noted that the Howland Teachers Association already switched insurance in the middle of the last contract, saving the district “several hundred thousand dollars,” so insurance did not need to be negotiated.

District treasurer Samantha Pochedly will resign as of July 31. Pochedly, who has been with the district since March 2020, said she will be moving to Southeast Local Schools in Portage County, which is closer to here home.

Board members voted to hire Julie Sloan, who is now the treasurer for Brookfield Local Schools, to replace Pochedly.

Board President Julie Altawil said the board has not negotiated Sloan’s contract yet. She was hired from a pool of five candidates.

“Julie Sloan has the experience, qualifications and integrity that will make her a wonderful addition to the Howland Local School District administration team as a treasurer. We are very excited to welcome her aboard and look forward to working with her,” Altawil said.

At the meeting Thursday, the board also requested the millage necessary to raise about $5 million annually — the first step in placing a 10-year renewal levy on the November ballot.

Spicher said the levy is not “new money.”

“We’re working very hard every single day, and we’ve not hired any additional new (staff),” Spicher said. “We just had some retirees, and we did not hire in place of those to make sure we’re doing our due diligence to the community.”

The board also approved the 2022-23 Students’ Rights and Responsibilities Handbooks, which Spicher said rolled back some restrictions on student dress code.

He said students have explained that they felt that parts of the dress code, like restrictions on facial hair or tattoos, was antiquated. The new code allows anything that does not cause a disruption to the education process; is not lude, inappropriate or slanderous; and doesn’t cause harm to themselves or someone else, Spicher said.

“We’re trying to do what we can to assist our kids to help them to understand we want them to have their freedoms of expression but at the same time make sure that we monitor it enough that it’s not causing those disruptions,” Spicher said.

He said some restrictions already had been removed this year and that “worked very well.”