School Board Meeting, February 21, 2008

Summary of school board meeting, Thursday, February 21, 2008.

The Board room was almost full. In attendance was county executive Mike Farmer. Zach Williamson, Band director of Roane County high school had some band members’ play in the lobby prior to the meeting. In the past, Zach has done this and it is an effort that is appreciated by everyone. Last year, he set up some band members outside in the parking lot and played for people as they entered the building.

All Board members were present except for Mike Taylor, who had a prior commitment.

In the hearing of delegates, five people spoke. Topics included the school calendar, advanced placement courses that could be offered and discussion of cell phone policy.

Everyone who addressed the Board did so with thought provoking comments. It is good to have good dialogue from the public, especially when presented in the positive way these five people did.

Committee reports that were filed were from the Technology committee and the Negotiation team.

In old business the Board voted 7-2 to approve a revised school calendar for 2008-2009 that started on August 11th and contained a fall break. Approval of the 2009-2010 calendar was deferred until the next month to ensure that all the dates and school days met all state requirements.

In new business, 17 policy revisions and one new policy were voted on and approved on 1st reading. Next month, if there is no opposition, the policies will be approved on second reading, which means they will become part of Board Policy.

There was an approval of a Memorandum of Agreement with Well Child, Inc. Well Child is a company that was started in 1978. Well Child is committed to make preventative state-of-the-art health care easily accessible for the communities’ children by offering services on-site at participating schools and agencies, to assist in removing health-related barriers in the education of children, to provide health care in partnership with the child’s family, school and community, to provide preventive health care that is age appropriate and culturally sensistive for the community’s children and youth, and to promote good health and disease prevention amongst our schoolchildren. There website is http://wellchild.com/. (appears to be under construction at this writing).

Also in new business, a discussion was held to decide on the purchase of a rapid notification system for the school. This is the type system where everyone in the school system can be notified of emergencies and school closings in a few minutes. A quick demonstration was given to the Board by SchoolCast. The Board voted to review other offers from other companies before proceeding, but the general consensus was that all attempts will be done to have a system like this in place for next school year.

The Board voted to use some BOE reserve funds to re-wire Kingston high school and both Oliver Springs schools due to the bad state of wiring in those schools. Technology Director, Jerry Yarbrough explained to the Board that the school system is experiencing a high number of network outages due to the school networks severely out dated, wiring run improperly, split pairs, and bad switches.

Meeting was adjourned around 9:00 p.m.