Mentor School Board Thanks Retiring Teachers & Staff At Meeting

The Mentor School Board of Education recognized retirees, athletes, spelling celebrities, scholarship winners and superlative writers during its meeting Tuesday at .

The Board thanked its 22 retiring administrators, teachers and staff members.

The retirees have accrued a cumulative 592 years of experience in education.

The board also recognized:

• the five Mentor High students who . Additionally, the Board presented track athlete Max Ostrowski with his diploma. Ostrowski missed graduation so he could compete in the 800 m at state.
• Vishnu Nistala, .
• the six state qualifiers from the district in the annual Power of the Pen competition: Hailey Rado, Ellie Barthol and Ashley Sindelar of Memorial Middle School and Alexa Malnar, Autumn Klobas and Rachel Wenzel of Shore Middle School.
• three graduating seniors who received scholarships from Lake Health so they can pursue jobs in the medical field. They are Abigail Baker, Jessica Asuma-Barty and Emily Harker.
• the nine students who won the elementary schools' "I Write to Read" contest. Each year, the fifth graders write an essay that discusses how reading helped their lives. The winners were Chloe Respondek of Bellflower Elementary, Alivia O'Donnell of Brentmoor, Emily Shields of Fairfax, Corey Hoffman of Garfield, Grace Kime of Hopkins, Sarah Wild of Lake, Aidan Hahn of Sterling Morton, Zachery Washburn of Orchard Hollow and Sage Mulcahy of Rice.
• Sarah Carver, the assistant to the Mentor High School principal, who won the Education Support Professional Award from the Ohio Education Association.

Carver spearheads the "I Write to Read" essay contest, is president of the Mentor Classified Employees, developed the district's "Read Across America" program and, this last year, worked with other Mentor High support staff to make sure some very deserving students had a memorable Christmas.