In less than a half hour of discussion and less than four minutes for the actual meeting with barely a quorum, the Union County Board of Education completed its work at the meeting on October 7.
Meeting a week early to accommodate fall break, the board heard from its attorney that the lawsuit with the Union County Historical Society had been settled and final order documents filed with the Union County Register of Deeds. However, Attorney MaryAnn Stackhouse appealed to the board members to adjourn to the library after the meeting to hear about even more current pending litigation.
Union County Education Association president Carolyn Murr thanked the board for the recent school improvements especially the paving and fencing at area schools. Murr also expressed her amazement at the “people going off the deep end” in reaction to the wearing of masks when last year there was little to no problem.
Regarding the immunizations policy postponed from the September meeting, the board approved the TSBA recommended policy to allow students to opt out of all immunizations including COVID-19.
Director of Schools Jimmy Carter noted a couple of announcements. He stated that several questions had arisen recently regarding sick leave, mainly with the requirements of documenting sick leave. He stated that although sick leave may not have been scrutinized in the past, now sick leave is being implemented as the policy states and the law requires, due to a trend of sick leave being taken when personal leave was more appropriate.
Employees are required to document the sick leave on the form, and sick leave must meet the listed reasons. For personal leave for teachers, accrued at the rate of two days every year, only the date needs to be noted; no reason is required. If teachers have a question, call Carter.
The COVID-19 Dashboard (usps.org.schools.bz) is up and running and includes the number of active cases for students in the district and the number of active cases for staff in the district. The dashboard also reports the number of student cases by school and number of student cases by grade level in the school.
Finance Director Missy Brown reported that spending was in line for the budget at about 25 percent of the total for all departments. All budget amendments were approved. Most amendments dealt with changes to grants and carryover money.
However, one amendment added money for fingerprinting materials. According to Carter, a new law requires a background check every five years for all employees. A local business was attempting to do the background checks and managed to reduce the number to less than 50 when the service provider went out of business. Therefore, the school system has decided to do the applications for background checks. The process calls for training the staff, providing fingerprinting materials, and submitting an electronic application over a secure line to the TBI/FBI.
Another budget amendment will involve the transfer of an additional $700,000 from Fund 141 to Fund 142 in order to administer the federal money from the ESSER and ARP Grants. The current $300,000 in the fund is unable to cover the large amounts needed to pay the bills under the grants. The situation is temporary since the grants are reimbursable and the money will return to 141 when all grant reimbursements are complete. Finally, the ARP Homeless Grant is a new grant that will provide a part time position for three years to review student records to ensure that all homeless students are identified and being properly served.
The board approved two more steps toward the building of a new middle school. First the board gave its approval of the re-submission of ESSER 3.0 due to some minor changes regarding the title of a position and the descriptions of furniture and some supplies for the book bus. Next the board supported the establishment of a School Construction Committee to review submissions regarding the RFQ's from the architects. The committee is composed of the current HMMS Principal, Rachel Hodges, County Mayor Jason Bailey, Marty Gibbs, Mike Johnson, Jimmy Carter and David Coppock. All meetings will be announced and open to all school board members, all county commissioners, and to the general public.
Other items that received board approval included the appointment of Brad Griffey, Melissa Cox and Jimmy Carter as Sick Leave Bank Trustees, the splitting of TNVA into a K-5 and a 6-8 for the purpose of testing accountability, and a contract for interpretive services for ESL.
The next Board of Education meeting will be November 11.