November 11, 2020 Board Meeting Minutes

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR WAYNE SCHOOL DISTRICT ON WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 11th, 2020 AT 6:00 PM at WAYNE HIGH SCHOOL.

THOSE PRESENT:

Conducting: Curtis Whipple

ADMINISTRATION

Curtis Whipple called the meeting to order. 

Pledge of Allegiance.

Jeff offers the reverence.

April motions to approve the minutes from October 14th, 2020.  Jeff seconds the motion. All in favor.

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Tyler states that free lunch has been extended throughout the entire school year instead of the initial period of December 31^st. He reviews changes to the NESS program which will provide additional ongoing funds to our district. The district will also be purchasing new computers using a computer science planning grant. 

Cory makes a motion to pay the bills. Shawn seconds. All in favor.

CITIZEN COMMENTS

Lynda Brown makes a comment that she has seen the article in the paper regarding school board compensation and has personally worked for the school for almost 30 years and received zero benefits. She would like to know why classified employee don’t get benefits when the school board members are receiving them.

She comments that she is working 28 hours per week. She asks why the school board doesn’t have to work 40 hours to receive benefits but employees do.

Randy responds that he understands where she is coming from and describes the challenges we face with Obamacare, which includes providing retirement benefits if other benefits are provided. There is a law that says that school boards can receive insurance benefits. 

Lynda responds that she feels that the board is making a career out of this because they receive the benefits and she doesn’t think that is right. The board can choose whether or not to take the benefits.

She manages the kitchen for two schools and has paid her own insurance. She didn’t make enough money as an employee to cover her insurance payments. 

April expresses appreciation for Lynda and her efforts.

Superintendent Shelley offers to sit down and talk with her about these concerns.

Noreen Johnson asks what is wrong with making a few full-time classified employees. We have issues filling jobs and are operating a skeleton crew as is because we don’t offer higher pay or benefits.

Shawn Davis says that we need to sit down and work out a way to help the classified employees. If we could find a way in our budget to pay more for our essential employees, it would be great. He says that we may have to sacrifice money spent in other areas to provide this.

Curtis recognizes that this probably can’t be something provided for every part-time employee in the district. Noreen agrees but states that there are a few positions that should receive benefits. Custodians work year-round, nights, and weekends. 

Andrea Peterson would like to hear their response to the article in the paper from Magon Bowling. 

Shawn says he believes that some parts are not true. He argues that they are not making $125/hr. He spends 3-4 hours per week doing school board work that is not seen.

Jeff replies that school board members don’t do this for a living. This role comes on top of already busy lives. He has taken the insurance some years but not all. He says that the insurance is somewhat of a carrot and an important part of it for some board members. The board can decide if they take it or not. Leadership positions require more work than just what happens in board meeting. Often it is uncomfortable. He has enjoyed serving and getting to know more about the process of education, but it is a lot of work. 

Cory says that taking a snapshot of events and portraying that it is the way all the time is not fair. He says there has been a lot of good come from the school board. Some of the changes in athletics were going to happen but the influence of Wayne School Board helped prevent those detrimental changes. Other board members serve on various committees and help influence decisions there. He says that there are a lot of hours put in outside of the meeting. He thinks it is unfortunate that people believe it is only 2 hours a month for the work of a board member. 

He continues that the board wants to make decisions that are best for kids. They don’t make the hires but they approve the hires and recommendations made by administrators and district staff. He says there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes. He says the recommendations should come from the superintendent. 

Curtis states that the service of board members has been key to success for our district. He says that CUES funding was going to be cut a few years back but because of the JLC committee, the funding was able to continue and is now guaranteed. There are advantages to our district being involved at the state level. He says that we need to be willing to grow and change. 

Shawn Davis says that he has issues with the internet filtering system. He says that some kids can’t get on and study because of the filtering. He asks the administrators if they find that to be the case. Lance Peterson and Mary Bray respond that it is not accurate. Andrea Peterson adds that if kids need to be able to get to a site, they can request access. 

Lance says that he believes the question should go to the administrators through the proper chain of command via a quick phone call if it needs to be addressed rather than coming up in board meeting.

Randy says there are many adequate sites that are available but filters are necessary to prevent access to unauthorized and unsafe sites.  Teachers and parents also need to be monitoring what is happening on those devices.

Shawn says that his daughter says professors from Snow College laugh at our kids for not being able to access certain sites because it is more restrictive than any other district. Randy and Andrea respond that the filtering system actually comes through Utah Educational Network and is the same for most districts across the state. Most complaints at the state level are that the filtering is too loose, no too strict.

INFORMATION ITEMS

Superintendent’s Report

Randy says that the biggest topics of discussion currently are around the governor’s mandate and how to proceed with winter activities. The only sports that are currently happening are the football playoffs. The governor has said he will re-evaluate in a few weeks but for now, there are no tryouts, no open gyms, and no extracurricular activities allowed. We need a plan in place for what we are going to do if they allow winter sports to move forward. 

He says that we need to be better at following the rules so we can participate. 

April says that the policing of masks is being left to local governments. Randy comments that there are potential fines for breaking the law, but we aren’t the mask police. We can shut down a ball game if we don’t have compliance. If all it takes is for the community to put on a mask so that we can have winter sports, then let’s put on a mask. It is the kids that are missing out if we can’t go forward with these activities. 

Ashlee Jackson asks about the potential fine or punishment for a school district. Randy responds that the punishment is specific to businesses, but we still carry a risk if we are willfully negligent. Ashlee asks if they are testing athletes weekly. Randy says they are testing those currently involved in playoffs and the athletes have to test negative prior to the competition. The challenge is that the money to perform the tests is prohibitive. The health department has allotted us a handful of tests each week but the amount needed for athletes is far beyond what is available. Realistically, there isn’t a way to test every student athlete across the state regularly. Mary says that sport contests are currently scheduled to return on December 3^rd. 

Discussion continues as to how to get better compliance and how the virus is spread and what symptoms are most typical. The schools don’t seem to be a driver of infection and we have only had 2 confirmed student cases. Most cases have come from social gatherings.

Jeff recognizes the effort of the district and believes that if we continue with safety procedures, we will prevent a large outbreak.

Committee Reports

We met as a district improvement committee last week and spent a lot of time talking about the district vision, mission, and goals. The discussion circled back to professional development and how we can expand on what we did earlier in the year. 

Curtis says that we need to be better at recognizing the good that is happening in our district. He distributes a mailing list to the board members for employees and encourages them to use it to recognize the good. 

Board Training

Shawn leads a training on the book Leadership and Self-Deception. An act of self-betrayal is denying a feeling or thought to act on behalf of someone else. As we deny those feelings, we end up in the box, which means seeing others as objects and leads to blaming, shaming and self-justification. When we treat others poorly, we are inviting others to do the same. 

BUSINESS ITEMS

Definition of At-Risk

Superintendent Shelley reviews the definition of At-Risk students, which includes students with learning or physical disabilities, mental health or health issues, truancy, abuse, low parental educational attainment or income, below benchmark assessments, among others factors. 

Cory makes a motion to approve the definition of “At-Risk”. Shawn seconds. All in favor.

Trust Lands Amendment

Lance Peterson addresses the amendment suggested which is basically combining a couple goals based on a change in funding sources. 

Shawn makes a motion to approve the Trust Lands Amendment. Jeff seconds. All in favor.

Roles and Responsibilities

Cory makes a motion to approve the Roles and Responsibilities of the School Board, Superintendent and Business Administrator. Shawn seconds. All in favor.

This will be posted on the website under Policies and Procedures. 

Policies

The following policies are new: CBDC – Procurement of Professional Services, CJDH – Transportation Operations Post Route Inspections, DABA – Paraprofessional Qualifications, DFC – Employee Surveys. 

Policy CCF – Procurement of Design Professional Services—had some updates.

Cory makes a motion to approve first reading of policies CBDC, CJDH, DABA, DFC, CCF, CKB

April seconds. 

Cory amends his motion to exclude policy CKB-Travel. All in favor of the amended motion.

Curtis discusses policy DHE – Employee Leave and Pay. There are questions about when employees become eligible and about the longevity clause. Curtis says that the question was brought up that an employee has to use PTO prior to using sick leave. This has been the practice, but is not in policy. 

Tyler explains the history of PTO in the district. Prior to the current system, employees had 3 vacation days and 10 days of sick leave. This was converted to 13 PTO days, which was provided so that employees could choose how to use all 13 days, either for sickness or vacation. He asks what it is the board would like to do with the policy. The board discusses allowing employees to take sick leave prior to taking PTO days. 

There is some confusion and questions regarding paid-time-off leave vs sick leave. Each benefited employee receives PTO. Days that are not used become accumulated sick leave in future years. These days can only be used after all PTO has been exhausted for the current year.

Discussion continues on what is best for employees and kids and what is the actual process. The board and administrators agree, based on comparables from other districts, that the policy is actually quite generous as it currently stands.

It is determined that the policy will be modified for clarity.

Tyler asks about the travel policies--DMD, CKB, CKC, BBG—and states that they need to be consolidated down to two policies. 

April suggests that the ad hoc committee was set up so that they could work with the superintendent outside of board meeting to work on policies. 

Tyler expresses frustration that we have been waiting for 11 months for this policy to be fixed. 

There is agreement that the superintendent will work on the policy so that it can be finalized. 

New Hires

Cory makes a motion to approve the new hires pending background check. April seconds. All in favor.

The following new employees were approved:

Kurtis Robins – assistant boy’s basketball coach

Alexis DeBoer – substitute teacher

Jay Jackson – assistant wrestling coach

CLOSED SESSION

April makes a motion to go into closed session per Utah Code Annotated Section 52-4-205(1)(a) at 8:40 pm. Shawn seconds. 

Open meeting resumes at 9:48 pm.

Curtis adjourns the meeting at 9:48 pm.