The CCBOE convened a special meeting to vote on the grievance appeals from Angela McCarthy and Jenny Simpkins. The motion put forward for both appeals was essentially the same. The vote was to let the incomplete evaluations stand based on the quantitative data, and a letter of exemption for the qualitative half would be put in their files. The motion for Angela McCarthy’s appeal passed four to one with BrianChase abstaining due to a possible conflict of interest. The motion for Jenny Simpkins’ appeal passed five to one. William Johnson voted against both motions.

Several issues were discussed in the work session following the board meeting. The school district is short two mechanics to maintain the school buses. The pay for the mechanics is lower than the Cheatham County Road Department and the Dickson school system. Dr Curtis discussed using the salary from the two open positions to give raises to the two current mechanics to make their pay more competitive. This method for making the pay increase creates a budget problem when the district goes to full staff with four mechanics.

The board also had concerns about a competition that the Harpeth Winter Drumline wants to attend. The Winter Drumline National Championship is a national competition that is being held in Dayton, OH. The board wanted to know how the drum line became eligible to compete in the contest, and they were concerned about the number of chaperons that would be attending. The request to attend this competition was rejected last year. By contrast, the board did approve a request last month to allow SMS and CMS students to travel to Philadelphia. The board also briefly discussed a request from Cheatham Central to allow six students to attend the National FFA Conference in Indianapolis, IN. None of the board members expressed any concerns about this trip being out of state. The discussion was mainly around a discrepancy between agenda versions which listed travel by school bus or personal vehicle.

The board also discussed three possible policy revisions affecting the staff. Policy 3.404 may be revised to allow the Director of Schools to specify the amount of insurance require for staff to have when conducting official business in the private vehicle. The separation policy may be amended to specify the number of vacation days that will be paid when employment is terminated. More work will be done on this to remedy the discrepancy between the 10 days for certified employees and the 12 days for full-year employees. Policy 4.406 may be modified to prohibit staff from accessing social networking sites during school hours unless the activity was education related. This would also mean no Facebook or Twitter access during lunch or breaks. The district would also discourage staff from interacting with students on social networks.

The board meeting to vote on these discussions is scheduled for October 1st at 7:00PM.