Monday's Internet Edition, September 06, 2010.
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| HONORED- Jeanie Harrison, a member of St. Thomas Catholic Church in Hamilton, recently received the Lumen Gentium (Light of the World) Award from Bishop Gregory Aymond of the Austin Diocese. The ceremony was held in the Mayborn Civic Center in Temple. This honor is presented in recognition of the service and faithfulness of lay individuals who exemplify the spirit of Christ. Harrison has been a blessing to her parish for over 20 years. She participates in every project the parish has, guides, teaches and leads the lectors. She is an Extraordinary Eucharistic Minister and has served on the Pastoral Council in almost all positions. She is in full Communion with the church. She is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. |
Board members William La-sater, Nancy Diaz, Dan Chorenziak, Diana Freeman and Kasey Kunkel were present at the meeting as well as Super-intendent Sam Bell. Herman Lanmon Jr. presided over the meeting. Jon Mark Jester was absent.
High School Principal Matt Dossey presented proposed changes to the student drug testing policy. He said he had re-convened the policy commit-tee and surveyed them regard-ing possible amendments. He said the committee wanted to make the policy more effective.
He said that the committee felt the consequences for a first offense should be more severe and recommended that students who tested positive for drugs should have 20 school days of suspension from extracurricular activities rather than 15 calen-dar days, which would be four school weeks rather than two. The recommendation for disci-pline of the second offense would be 40 school days rather than 60 calendar days.
Dossey said he and the committee also recommend that alcohol be removed from the drug test policy since the cur-rent drug test panel does not include alcohol.
“Alcohol needs to be in the extracurricular code of con-duct,” he said. “I know there are some folks who would have a problem with 20 calendar days (suspension) for alcohol use.”
Dossey said some of the rea-soning behind separating alco-hol from “illegal drug” use is that alcohol becomes legal at age 21, tobacco becomes legal at age 18, but marijuana is ille-gal at any age.
Bell said that the only way students could be disciplined for alcohol use was “if a parent or the kid admits it or a kid gets a citation.”
“We’re not condoning use of alcohol,” Dossey stated. “I asked the committee if alcohol should hold the same weight as illegal drugs and across the board the answer was no. There will be consequences, but it may not be 20 school days, it might be 10 school days.”
Diaz asked why there was a difference in the consequences for alcohol use and illegal drugs.
“I don’t think it’s the same offense,” Dossey answered. “I really do think there needs to be a separation of the policies for alcohol and illegal drugs. We’re battling an illegal drug problem.”
“Alcohol is an illegal drug under the age of 21,” Freeman said. “We’re battling an alcohol problem because of the passé attitude.”
Dossey said the policy amendment wouldn’t affect the discipline for alcohol use at school. “This is an extracur-ricular offense where it affects behavior outside school. There’s no way we can con-done alcohol.”
“We don’t want to convey the attitude that it’s not ok to get high but it’s ok to get drunk,” Lasater said.
“We can take alcohol out of the drug policy because we don’t test for it, but it must be addressed,” Lanmon said.
Dossey asked the board, “Do y’all want alcohol to carry the same consequences as drugs?”
The board members af-firmed that they did.
Dossey said, “Those stu-dents not in extracurricular activities can do whatever they want (outside of school) and the school cannot do anything.”
Athletic Director David Wright said, “We’re holding the students in extracurricular activities to a higher standard, and that’s what we want to do.”
“We don’t want to water down anything or take a step backward,” Dossey said. “We want illegal drugs to pertain to what we test for.”
Wright said there has never been a document stating what the extracurricular discipline policy is, but now there will be.
In discussing the Student Code of Conduct, Dossey pro-posed to amend the policy re-garding tobacco use. He said that currently the policy states that law enforcement will be called the first time a student is caught with tobacco.
“If we called law enforce-ment with every possession of tobacco, we would have the police up here seven out of eight hours of every day,” Dossey said.
He suggested calling law en-forcement on the second of-fense. “They (students) won’t get out of discipline, but they won’t get an MIP the first time,” he said.
Freeman asked if a federal law prohibits possession of tobacco on school property.
“It’s a state law,” Bell said.
Freeman said the students would be getting the wrong message if the policy were changed. “We’d be saying you’re breaking the law and we’re going along with it,” she said.
“If they’re 18 years old they won’t get an MIP, but it’s still against the law,” Dossey said. He stated that he believes teachers are not reporting to-bacco possession because they don’t want the students to get MIPs.
“I don’t want to have some-thing in policy that we’re not going to practice,” he contin-ued. “I don’t know every time a kid gets caught with snuff, be-cause it’s not coming to my attention, and I want it to come to my attention.”
In discussing the Student Handbook and the Student Code of Conduct, Dossey said there have been a few other minor changes.
He said it is difficult to get excuse notes when students have been absent. He stated that the students probably get the notes from their parents but they forget to take them out of their backpacks and leave them in the office.
Dossey said students will be required to turn in notes within seven school days after the ab-sence. “If the notes aren’t in, it will count against their exemp-tions,” he said.
He said the boys’ hair code will state “the ear lobe must be visible on the sides.” He ex-plained, “I want to see if they’re wearing an earring or not.”
Dossey said the students who are not within the hair code will be given a reasonable amount of time to get their hair cut and will be sent to In School Suspension if they don’t meet the code within the time they are given.
Regarding the cell phone policy, he said there has been a suggestion that students place their cell phones on the corner of their desks during class so they can be monitored.
He said that he is hesitant to require students to place the phones on their desks. “The hesitation I have with that is – what if the kid gets up to sharpen their pencil and they come back and their cell phone is stolen or it gets knocked off the desk and broken?”
“I’m not quite ready to have them set the phones out,” he said. “They will be required to have them put away during the instructional day.”
Diaz said, “You know they’re calling people in the community and texting – send-ing answers to tests.”
“I don’t know how to get around it,” Dossey said. “I will appreciate any suggestions.”
Diaz said she has heard that there are teachers who allow students to openly use their phones during the day.
Dossey said he doesn’t know of any teachers who do so. “It cannot happen during the instructional day,” he stated.
Elementary principal Jenni-fer Zschiesche said the policy for her campus has some minor changes.
She said she has added Mo-hawks to the list of distracting haircuts. She also added the prohibition of electronic de-vices and stated that cell phones must be turned in to teachers during the day. She said that skin-tight attire, such as leggings, must be appropri-ately covered with a skirt or other clothing.
Junior high principal Mona Gloff said that flip-flops will be allowed on her campus on a trial basis. She said that her dress code states that low neck-lines and exposed cleavage is not appropriate. Also grades up to 105, but not over, will be allowed on report cards. Gloff also reviewed for the board the requirements for promotion to high school.
The board unanimously ap-proved the Student Code of Conduct. They are not required to approve student handbooks.
Dossey recommended ex-cluding district competitions from the 13 allowable absences for extracurricular activities that high school students have each school year. He explained that, although the school has some control over pre-season games and tournaments, they do not have any control over district or post-district competi-tion.
He said that due to the long drives required for some of the competitions, students must leave school before the last class period in order to get to their destination in time for competition.
“Students sometimes have to use a full day of absences be-cause they leave school two periods early,” he said. “I don’t want to tell a kid they can’t go compete in a district competi-tion because they’re out of days.”
He said stock shows that will be considered district and post-district are those that are “after the sift.” If there is no sift, it is pre-district and counts against the 13 days.
The board unanimously ap-proved the recommendation.
Zschiesche recommended changes to the elementary and junior high morning drop-off procedure. She said there were some safety concerns pointed out during a recent safety audit and she believes the new pro-cedure will remedy some of the problems.
“For safety sake we’re look-ing at a drop-off site,” she said. “The first week of school the parents will be allowed to take the kids to their rooms. After the first week, we will encour-age the parents to drop them off.”
She said fourth and fifth grade students will be dropped off on Taylor Street at the back of the school, and younger stu-dents will be dropped off in front. She said if parents have students in different grades they may all be dropped off at the same location. Greeters will be at the drop-off points to help students out of the cars and into the building. All students will stay in the cafeteria or the li-brary until teachers escort them to their classrooms.
Dossey recommended al-lowing dual-credit college courses to be given weighted grades, and the board unani-mously approved.
Zschiesche recommended the addition of a student coun-cil program for Ann Whitney Elementary School. She said training will be provided to the school in the fall. The board approved her recommendation.
Rena Sliger and several members of the Hamilton Live-stock Association were present to address the board during the public comments portion of the meeting regarding projects at Fair Park.
“We are here to ask for your support in some way, maybe in a maintenance way,” she said. Sliger said the facility is used by other organizations and not only for livestock purposes.
She said, “I know you have agreements with the country club for golf and the city for girls’ softball. The bottom line is, we’re asking for some money, as much as you can give us.”
Lanmon said, “As public trustees we are not able to do-nate money. We can’t write out a check and give it to you. There may be other ways we can help. We know you have made a lot of improvements up there and we are very proud of what you have done.”
He asked what, specifically, the association was asking for.
“We don’t know what we need right now,” Sliger an-swered.
Lanmon said the request would be considered.
Sliger said the group would request to be placed on the agenda for a future meeting and they will be back to discuss the issue with the board.
The board approved the school cafeteria pricing sched-ule, which included increases for school meals and milk.
Business manager Jimmy C. Adams told the board that the 2008-2009 grounds provider would be Jason Craig, who submitted the low bid for the service.
The board approved the dis-trict’s Technology Plan and acceptable use policy as pre-sented by Jean Krempin. They also approved the school board meeting calendar, an Interlocal Participation Agreement and Resolution with TASB, teacher appraisal calendar and financial reports as submitted.