Superintendent plans retirement

Sweetwater County School District No. 2's longtime superintendent will retire June 2020.

Donna Little-Kaumo announced her intent to retire Tuesday night at the district board of trustees meeting. She said she wanted to give the community as much time as possible to find her replacement. Little-Kaumo said she wanted to spend more time with family.

Little-Kaumo has worked in the district for the past 14 years.

She said when she first arrived at the district, schools were recording scores as low as 19 percent proficiency in subjects. Now, the district is one of the most successful in the state.

"Truly, we are one of the talked about districts when it comes to our kids," Little-Kaumo said.

Assistant Superintendent Jamie Christiansen said he learned a lot from Little-Kaumo in the decade they've worked together.

"She's so talented with so many pieces of a complicated, complex job," he said.

"We have some big shoes to fill, that's for sure," chairwoman Brenda Roosa said.

Other business

The board approved a $316,990 bid for 1,000 Chromebooks from Troxell. The computers are 4 gigabyte touchscreen models and include a three-year warranty, including accidental damage, on each device. According to board documents, the model was highly recommended by Uinta County School District No. 1, which has used the model for more than five years.

While the vote was unanimous, board member Steve Core objected to the amount of information available to him.

"In the future, I'd like to see all the numbers," he said.

Core said there were a dozen bids submitted to the district and expressed a desire to read all of the bid submissions, as well as find out where each company is located.

Spencer Bagshaw, technology supervisor for the district, said more than half of the bids were rejected because the computers could not be managed through the 2023 school year. He said the bid from Troxell was the lowest to include the three-year warranty.