Roane County Schools

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Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the
Board of Education of the County of Roane

November 19, 2020

6:00 pm @ Roane County High School, Spencer, WV

  1. This meeting may be joined remotely. The public can join by calling 1-304-553-7794 and entering the conference ID 119 151 112 or by joining on Microsoft Teams using this link.
  2. Presentations
    1. Positively ChargedOur county's continued approval status by the WVBE was announced at their meeting last week. As part of the Balanced Scorecard Accountability Model that the state department developed a few years ago, there is a county level proficiency profile category, but due to COVID, some of the assessment data from last year is incomplete. We were rated for efficiency in Federal Programs, Special Education, Universal Pre-K, Finance, Personnel, Official Collections, and Child Nutrition and met requirements in all rated areas. Areas of Career and Technical Education, County Board Member Effectiveness, Facilities, and Transportation were not rated this year. This means our schools are officially accredited by the state board of education.
    2. Public Participation
    3. Student AchievementWe have developed a number of different approaches to deal with the concerns we've had with distance learning. First, we plan to identify those kids on distant learning that are not succeeding and come up with criteria to bringing them back to in-person instruction. We will be prioritizing Seniors, and families with multiple children that are struggling. Second, we will provide further professional development opportunities for our teachers with TNTP, which is a company that specializes in distant learning. Third, further professional development will be provided through our teacher mentoring program, which will focus on distance learning and family engagement. Fourth, we have put together a guideline for expectations in our academic programs and will follow with monitoring and enforcement in hopes to get our students and teachers back on track.
  3. New Business for Consideration and Potential Action
    1. Update on school calendar, Executive Orders, and schedule of athletic events
    2. Approval of 2020-30 CEFPMotion by Eileen Richardson and seconded by Gregory Boggs to approve. Motion carried. (7:45 pm)
  4. Consent Agenda - (Action)Motion by Gregory Boggs and seconded by James Minney to approve the following consent agenda as recommended by Richard Duncan, Superintendent. Motion carried. (8:12 pm)
    1. Approval of minutes of regular board meeting on November 5, 2020
    2. Financial
      1. Transfers/supplements to the budget
      2. Payments of bills as submitted; pre-approval to release checks not to exceed $20,000 prior to the next board meeting
      3. Financial Reports
    3. Policies
      1. First Reading
        1. Policy 450 - Student Co- and Extra-Curricular Activities (revised)
        2. Policy 501 - Nondiscrimination and Equal Employment Opportunity (revised)
        3. Policy 512 - Areas of Critical Need and Shortage (revised)
    4. Contract(s) / Agreement(s) / Bid(s)
    5. Field trip(s)
    6. Volunteer(s)
    7. Student Transfer(s)
  5. Personnel Consent Agenda - (Action)Motion by Daris Harper and seconded by Gregory Boggs to approve the following personnel items as recommended by Richard Duncan, Superintendent. Motion carried. (8:14 pm)
    1. New Employment(s)
      1. Mills, Jordan - Teacher / Social Studies (Roane County High School), effective November 20, 2020, pending alternative certification
      2. Spencer, Britney - Teacher / Art (Geary Elementary / Middle School), effective November 23, 2020
    2. Leave of Absence(s)
      1. Extracurricular(s)
        1. White, Nathanial - Assistant Coach, Boys Basketball (Spencer Middle School), effective November 20, 2020
        2. Cox, Rodney - Assistant Coach, Girls Basketball (Auxiliary) (Walton Elementary / Middle School), effective November 20, 2020
    3. The following item(s) were recommended by Carla Brown, Superintendent's designee.
      1. Leave of Absence(s)
        1. Duncan, Sarah - Teacher / Career Literacy (Spencer Middle School), effective November 21, 2020 to June 30, 2021, extending previous leave (from August 13, 2020; unpaid, WV Code 18A-2-2a)Motion by Gregory Boggs and seconded by Daris Harper to approve the above leave of absence. Richard Duncan recused himself from the vote and left the room, as required by WV Code 6B-2-5(j). Motion carried. (8:15 pm)
    4. Reports of Committees
      1. Roane-Jackson Technical Center Administrative Council (11/17/2020)The tech center has been closed to ALL students (Jackson and Roane) the past couple weeks due to Jackson County being in red/orange. We had Students of the Month to recognize, but were unable to recognize them since no students were in attendance on that day. This also makes it difficult for many of the programs that rely heavily on hands-on experience. SBA projects are wrapping up. The water plant has the money there, but is waiting on approval from the Bureau of Public Health, which has been busy. We hope to get this resolved soon since RJTC is one of the few schools remaining that pumps its own water and processes its own sewer on site. The annual Council on Occupational Education (COE), the council that accredits the adult education programs will do their annual reviews virtually. It will be followed by a live visit once COVID is more under control.
    5. Superintendent's RemarksThe contractor that repaired our cooling tower underbilled us by $40,000. The contract was for $480,000 and they only billed us for $440,000. We will be paying for that difference shortly.
    6. Adjournment
      1. Adjourn until the next regular meeting, on Thursday, December 3, 2020, at 6:00 pm at Roane County High SchoolMotion by Gregory Boggs and seconded by Eileen Richardson to approve. Motion carried. (8:24 pm)