The Greene County School Board met twice Wednesday.
The Board met in special session to approve a few agenda items. The Board approve the 2016-17 calendar with the first day of school on August 24th and the last day on May 31st and early Wednesday dismissals to continue for the upcoming school year. The Board also approved an amendment to the 2015-16 budget to purchase 250 Google Chromebooks for $65,937.50. Finally, the Board approved the 2016-17 budget. The tax levy is $12.36 per $1,000 of property tax valuation. However, because this is the last year of tax breaks from reorganization, the former Jefferson-Scranton district residents will pay $12.40 and the former East Greene district residents will pay $12.27 before everyone pays the same amount starting with the 2017-18 school year.
About 20 people then attended the first open public meeting with the Board. Main topics that were covered included attendance policy in regards to what is considered an excused and an unexcused absence. The current policy allows for some flexibility, which the ultimate decision is left to the building administrator. Following the discussion, it was decided that the Board will consider looking at the attendance policy at their May meeting.
Another topic that was addressed was about the evaluation process of teachers and coaches. The Board’s responsible for hiring and terminating teachers based off the recommendation from the superintendent.
There was a discussion on teachers and non-teachers as coaches. A teacher that is a coach is allowed to request a hearing from the Board if that individual is being terminated and then they can request an appeal above the Board if needed. However, a non-teacher that is a coach is only allowed to have a hearing in front of the Board. The activities director is responsible for evaluating the coaches, which is done on a three year cycle. It was brought up that there should be a fulltime AD for the district instead of the position being part-time to allow for the AD to do their job effectively. No decision was made by the Board on the evaluation process for teachers and/or coaches.
Celli Whipple is a former school board member and told Raccoon Valley Radio that she thought the first public meeting was very helpful and she hopes that more people attend to have their voice heard and have an active discussion with some of the board members. She thought it was great that the district would allow for an interactive meeting. Board Vice-President Dr. David Ohrt shared how he felt the meeting went.
“Well there were a lot of good questions asked. People tended to be very respectful of each other and hopefully there was good information shared back and forth.”
The open public meetings will continue to be on the second Wednesday of every month at 5:30pm with two to three board members present at each meeting on a rotation basis.