BUTLER TWP — The Butler Area School District’s progress in finding a new tenant for the former Butler Middle School has “faltered,” superintendent Brian White said at a school board meeting Monday, Aug. 12, with one of the groups that had previously expressed interest in the site no longer moving forward.

White said he plans to schedule meetings with various authorities, including the Community Development Corporation of Butler County and Butler County Economic Development & Planning to address the next steps.

He said the district remains committed to ensuring the vacant building does not become a source of “blight” in Butler.

“We understand the importance of this location but we also have to make sure we’re cognizant of the financial reality ...” White said, noting the district’s purpose is serving its students.

Every day the building sits vacant, White said, the district incurs maintenance fees.

“There are a lot of ideas,” White said after the meeting. “The question is, are the ideas that are realistic on a timeline where the district isn’t ... carrying costs?”

Further updates will be shared in a report in September, he said.

Monday evening, school board members also approved first and second readings of several policies, including a discrimination and harassment policy that protects students from being discriminated against on the basis of gender identity, along with other identity markers, such as race, ethnicity, disability and pregnancy.

“If one student’s interfering with another student’s ability to receive an education, you have an obligation (to take action),” solicitor Thomas Breth said in response to a board member’s question over the legal implications of the policy as it relates to gender identity. “Take the labels off.”

With the policy requiring a second reading, the school board will continue discussing the policy.

Additionally, the school board approved an improvement plan for the senior high school that outlines goals in improving performance across English language arts and math.

The school board also approved a $2,500 grant from the Grable Foundation that will benefit STEAM programming at McQuistion Elementary School, and a teacher evaluation system for new educators in the district that will be implemented in the fall.

“You’ve got to hear the big shift in all of this,” White said. “Evaluation teaching ... at one point was centered on satisfactory, unsatisfactory, and it grew to four different kinds of domains.”

“We’re at the point right now as a profession that we need to grow anyone who has a passion and heart for teaching in the vocation, because we are short teachers,” he said. “We’re not in the era of evaluating people and knowing there’s 500 applicants behind that (applied) — that’s just not the case anymore,” he said. “So when people run into struggles, we need to help them grow through that. If they are great at something, we need to (help) them.”

White said the district also continues to face challenges in transportation and custodial staff.