Greenville Superintendent end-of-year update

by CrownRandall | Jun 5, 2025 | The Wave Report

With the close of the 2024-2025 school year, it is time to congratulate another group of outstanding seniors who formally became graduates on May 31, 2025. One hundred eighty-one graduates received their diplomas, representing the Greenville Schools Class of 2025.

The 2025 class has had many academic and extra-curricular accomplishments while at Greenville and we commend each and every graduate. We wish all graduates much success and happiness in their future endeavors, and they are now welcomed as our alumni.

Our district now turns its attention to the preparation for next year. Academically, we continue to focus on teaching twenty-first-century learning skills to all of our students as well as state content standards. We strive to continue to improve our academic performance. We will also begin to staff our building for the 2025-2026 year to replace personnel who have retired or left for other opportunities. Annual cleaning of our buildings and grounds, as well as computers and iPads, will also take place, as will needed repairs and inspections in our buildings and with our bus fleet.

At the K-4 elementary level we will continue to offer our Kids Read Now summer reading program along with our Summer Bridges program for standards-based summer learning.

Summer School is available at the high school and will be held from June 2nd through July 3rd. Summer School courses will be blended learning in physical education and health.

There will also be courses in algebra I or II and geometry, as well as the Virtual Academy for make-up recovery credits, including English. Again, contact the high school principal or the curriculum department at Memorial Hall with Summer School registration questions. All courses at the high school are pending, having enough students for enrollment.

At the high school and middle school next year, we will continue to implement the College Credit Plus courses for the twelfth year. We now offer CCP from several colleges and universities, including Edison State, Sinclair, and Wright State. Many of our students continue to take advantage of the CCP program. One hundred thirty-four students participated in College Credit Plus during the 2024-2025 school year. Two seniors graduated with both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree.

All of our elementary and middle school students continued to participate in our Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP) or Exact Path online testing assessments this past year using their iPad devices. These tests are given three times a year and allow our staff to see how students are aligning to their end-of-year state test and see the reading, mathematical, and science level gains they are achieving.

Across the district, other curriculum plans for next year include the purchase of textbooks and supplemental material in the disciplines of foreign language, business, and health. We continue to incorporate a six-year cycle to upgrade our curriculum material by content area.

Much of the focus this summer with maintenance projects will be on the completion of the Stadium Bleacher Project. Bleachers are to be delivered on June 19th and the press box on the first of July. Two crews are scheduled to install. We will also be cleaning and varnishing all the gymnasiums. The terrazzo floor at the K-8 complex will be cleaned and resealed.

Also, we are improving the crowning at the Jennings Track & Field Complex, installing Marcs radios, and performing normal routine building and bus fleet inspections.

A special thank you and congratulations to our Class of 2025 Valedictorian and Salutatorian, who gave addresses at Greenville High School’s One Hundred and Fifty-First Commencement exercise. The Valedictorian in the Class of 2025 is Elise Fugett and the Salutatorian is Ella Stebbins.

The district would like to highlight several recent accomplishments by students and staff:

• Madison Hutchens (Eikenberry’s) and Skyanne Flicker-Kiser (Beauty Supply Group) were recognized as community I.G.N.I.T.E. Award winners. They were recognized for their involvement in both High School Career Tech and for their employment to a local business employer through the Darke Economic Development program.
• Amy Schoen was the 2025 Greenville City Schools Teacher of the Year. She works at our high school career tech building and is the FCCLA advisor. She has many years of experience qualifying students for the national competition, including this year.
• Wendi Gibson, Teacher Mentor of the Year, for all of Darke County
• Charlie Pope for winning the Board of Education Outstanding Art Award at the annual Waves of Pride.
• The Careers with Children FCCLA program had several students qualify for national competition in Orlando, Florida, in early July. Those students are:
  • Callee Moore – Early Childhood Education
  • Kaylynn Hiatt & Aubrey Tanner – Nutrition and Wellness
  • Madison Hutchens -Teach and Train
• Allison Francis, Troy Lavy, Bo Melton, and Owen Shaffer received their State FFA degrees
• Emma Smith – Gold-Rated Reporters Book for FFA
• Kyrie Unger -Gold-Rated Secretary’s Book for FFA
• The following students had artwork selected for the 2025 OAEA Emerging Artists Exhibition. Their artwork will be on display at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus and they were recognized at an artists’ reception on Saturday, May 10th.
  • Marissa Boney
  • Jacob Denton
  • Addison Fine
  • Cayll Lester
  • Katie Plessinger
  • Lizzie Shaffer
  • Annabel Vance
• Several of our students were awarded countywide High School Art Show awards:
  • Matthew Baker
  • Rebekah Bunch
  • Allie Leensvaart
  • Amara Holdeman
  • Breanna Landis
  • Cayll Lester
  • Claire Lind
  • Jocelyn Reier
  • Lizzie Shaffer
  • Adele Strunks
  • Lauren Wills
  • Hailey Woolery
  • Janalyn Reier won BEST OF SHOW for the scratchboard piece
• Adrian Miller-Castano, an 11th-grade student, for being invited to perform with the Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra. The concert took place at the Roger Glass Center in Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday, May 11, 2025.
• Our NJROTC Green Wavy Navy was recognized for their outstanding work and second year winning the UNIT ACHIEVEMENT AWARD. Unit achievement designation is limited to the top 30% of units in the country. Congratulations, Green Wave Navy, Commander Mark Atkinson, and Justin Travis, for the unit achievement award for the second year in a row.
• The District would like to highlight the Greenville City Schools Business Advisory Council for officially being recognized with a 3-Star Award by Governor DeWine and the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. The council was recognized for implementing quality practices with consistency, as they provide high-quality experiences while preparing students for success for the 2025 school year. Congratulations, Greenville City Schools Business Advisory Council and thanks for your hard work.
• The following students achieved either perfect or nearly perfect scores in their Mathematics, Language Arts, Science, Government, or History Ohio Achievement test scores for the spring of 2025:

3rd Grade Math:
Benjamin Goodenow
Caleb Landis
Emma Schleiger

4th Grade Math:
Miles Baker
Aden Coblentz

5th Grade Math:
Franklin Gilmore
Lillian Helman
Aaron Holzapfel
Zander Huffman

6th Grade Math:
Cole Berk
Jaxsyn Hupman
Hayley Kennett

7th Grade Math:
Nathan Powers

11th Grade American Government:
Conner Leas
Elijah Worden

5th Grade Science:
Franklin Gilmore

10th American History:
Damien Lock

• Spring Sports Accomplishments:

First Team Miami Valley League Spring Awards 2025:

Girls Track
Brooke Schmidt – Discus (Champion)

Boys Track
Owen Marker – 3,200 Run
David Conway – High Jump

Softball
Kylar Arnett – Infielder
Zoey Burns – Infielder
Kendall Cromwell – Catcher
Lizzie Shaffer – Outfield
Leah Force – Infielder
Ella Oswalt – Pitcher

Boys Tennis
Mason Pierri – Singles
Drew Beisner – Doubles
Avery Yount – Doubles

• Brooke Schmidt (Discus) for qualifying for the regional track meet
• The Greenville Girls Softball team for qualifying for the regional competition and becoming regional semi-finalists and winning the Division III District Tournament, as well as the MVL Divisional and overall MVL Championship
• Mason Pierri for being a district qualifier in tennis
• Mason Pierri (Tennis): 27 wins in a season (a school record)
• Lukas Thorp: 41’8 ¼” triple jump (a school record)
• Ella Oswalt: Player of the Year, Softball MVL
• Jerrod Newland, Sam Bowers, and David Guillozet: MVL Coaches of the Year in their respective sports

The close of the 2024-2025 school year will mark the retirement of some of our employees. Staff members retiring at the end of the year include Beth Arnold, Stacey Baker, Lisa Barga, Robyn Bowers, JoAnn Burke, Maggie Copeland, Lora Duncan, Amy Gelhaus, Chris Mortensen, Jody Neff, Kelly Stull, Gwen Warvel, and Mike Woody. For all of the retiring employees, we wish them the very best in their retirement and future endeavors. Please join me in thanking each of these retiring employees for their dedication and commitment to Greenville City Schools and our students. Collectively, these staff members had 342 ½ years of experience at Greenville.

We wish all of our students and staff an enjoyable and safe summer vacation full of relaxing time with family and friends. The Superintendent and Treasurer’s Offices are open all summer. As always, feel free to contact us with any questions you have about our district. Thanks to everyone for helping us all with another wonderful school year.

To all our students, parents, staff, and community members, stay safe over the summer and enjoy your break. Go WAVE always!

by Douglas W. Fries, Superintendent, Greenville City Schools

Bleachers, press box improvements to begin at Greenville HS

by CrownRandall | Mar 5, 2025 | The Wave Report

GREENVILLE – Greenville City Schools will be beginning their Phase III Stadium Outdoor Athletic Facilities updates at the high school in the near future. This Phase III will include new bleachers, a press box, an additional ticket booth, an entrance way, fencing and pavement upgrade on the roadway directly behind the home bleachers.

There will be a developed area for the district canon display, as well as naming the new stadium as Greenville Alumni Stadium marked on the press box. There are an estimated 2,216 bleachers on the home side including approximately 242 bucket seats. There are 1,219 estimated total seats on the visitor side and 244 estimated seats on the south end. All bleachers will accommodate appropriate wheelchair seating. Demolition is scheduled to begin in mid-to-late March, with construction to follow. The hope is to have the stadium done before the 2025 season.

The Greenville Board of Education worked with Dick Brown on the naming rights of the stadium as Greenville Alumni Stadium because of his gracious donation toward the Phase III Project of $500,000 over a five-year period. This contribution was greatly appreciated by the district.

The district will again work with Oberer Thompson as the design builder and Motes and Associates as the criteria architect during this phase of construction. The total budget for the project, as approved by the Greenville Board of Education, is presently $4,011,268.00.

Traffic flow and parking will be adjusted around the football stadium as soon as the project begins. The district looks forward to stage III of construction.

Greenville City Schools appreciated the cooperation of the city, county, construction council and design team for the preparation of the preconstruction design on the upcoming stadium bleacher/press box improvement.

Fries announces retirement, football players look for answers

by CrownRandall | Feb 21, 2025 | The Wave Report

GREENVILLE – Greenville City School District Board of Education held its regular meeting, Thursday, February 19, 2025 at St. Clair Memorial Hall.

The board unanimously approved to accept the separation and resignation of Douglas Fries, Superintendent, Greenville City School, effective at the end of his contract, at the close of the day, July 31, 2025, as presented.

Earlier in the day, Greenville Athletic Director Aaron Shaffer was on the agenda for the evening meeting but was removed without comment or explanation before the meeting began.

Greenville junior, team captain, and starting quarterback of the Green Wave varsity football program Aiden Manix spoke on behalf of the football team, which had many high school football team members in attendance.

“For those who don’t know me, my name is Aiden Manix,” he said. “I am a junior at GHS, but for me, most importantly, I am a captain on the football team. This next season, I will be playing my last season of football with all my brothers. I won’t lie. After everything that has gone down, I have thought of transferring, but my love of my friends, teachers, and school just simply won’t allow me to.”

“I also know many other players have thought about transferring too, but they are also in the same boat as me, which is why I am here tonight with some of the guys on the team who have the same hunger as I do to win but right now, we don’t even have a coach to help us win.”

“We are so far behind the eight ball it’s almost embarrassing to be involved with. After we were far into the offseason we finally got into the weight room after I wrote a letter to our AD. By the way, we won’t have a lifting coach in eight days.”

“Until last week, we didn’t have a clue of who could possibly be our coach until Coach Shaffer, our AD, threw his hat in the ring, but now we are back to square one because he is not getting approved tonight.”

“We as a team need a coach now; we want the Greenville Football team to be the reason Greenville is successful from here on out,” Manix concluded. “We want to be the change around here. Thank you for listening to me speak, and I urge you to hear me out and figure this thing out.”

The board approved a supplemental contract for Adam Eberwein to serve as Strength/Conditioning Coordinator (Winter).

Federal programs public hearing set for March 20

by CrownRandall | Jan 26, 2025 | The Wave Report

GREENVILLE – The Greenville City School District is accepting public input regarding the expenditure of federal grant funds through Title I, Title II-A (Improving Teacher Quality), Title IV-A (Student Support and Academic Enrichment), IDEA-Part B (Special Education) and Early Childhood Special Education grants for the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years.

State law requires that prior to the adoption of any policies and procedures needed to comply with this funding, the district ensures that there are public hearings, adequate notice of the hearings, and an opportunity for comment available to the general public.

A hearing for public input will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 20, 2025, at Memorial Hall, 215 W. Fourth St. If you are unable to attend, but have suggestions or questions, please email Jim Hooper, Federal Programs Coordinator at [email protected]

Greenville Career Technology Center report card

by CrownRandall | Jan 26, 2025 | The Wave Report

We have had a wonderful start to the school year at the Greenville Career Technology Center. Each program is working to ensure that each student has incredible opportunities to assist them with their future endeavors. I am excited about what this school year will bring.

We are pleased to be serving a total of 269 students in our junior and senior programs this school year. In total, 71.5% of our juniors and seniors at the high school are connected with a career technology course or program.

Greenville’s students’ involvement in career technology is not the only good news, the Career Technology Report Cards were released by the Ohio Department of Education. These report cards include six marks for performance within four different components. The four components are averaged to give a final grade. Greenville Career Technology Center received an overall grade of 4.5 out of 5 stars with 9 out of 9 federal indicators accomplished. This is a 1-star improvement compared to last year’s report card.

The first component on the report card is Achievement, and Greenville CTC scored 4 stars (88.9%). This is a 2.7% growth from last year’s percentage. This component represents the total number of students who passed the end-of-course state assessments. These tests measure the knowledge the student has obtained from their career technology program.

The Graduation Rate component is the next of the four components, and Greenville CTC scored 5 stars. This component looks at the overall percentage of students in a career technology program who successfully earned a high school diploma in four or five years. Greenville CTC’s average was 94.5%.

With Greenville CTC scoring a component grade of 4 stars (76.8%), the Career and Post-Secondary Readiness is the third component included on the report card. This is a 9.1% growth from last year’s percentage. The Career and Post-Secondary Readiness component looks at how prepared our students are for future opportunities. This includes those students who may want to further their technical skills in the workforce, military, or college.

The final component is the Post-Program Outcomes. This component looks at the number of students who are employed, part of an apprenticeship program, enlisted in the military, involved in a service program, or enrolled in postsecondary education or advanced training during the six months after graduating from school. For this component, Greenville CTC scored a 5 star (94.5%). This is a 4-star (19.1%) increase.

Thanks to the hard work of our students, staff, teachers, and community, the Greenville Career Technology Center continues to be successful in equipping students with technical skills, industry-recognized credentials, and employability skills. As a team, we will continue to strive for improvement in all areas while preparing our students, present and future, for success.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about the programs offered at Greenville Career Technology Center, please contact Christopher Sykes at [email protected]