She only had three minutes to speak (and they time it down to the second) but during that time former Irving Elementary Principal Debbie Fort provided the most vital comment during Tuesday night's 90-minute meeting of the Joplin R-8 Board of Education.
During the public comment time, in which those wishing to comment are limited to items on the board agenda, Dr. Fort proposed that the board look at two of the policies it is reviewing and allow professional and support staff employees who retire to donate unused sick pay to a pool to be used for employees with catastrophic illnesses.
Dr. Fort said that it would be better if the retiring employees could be paid for those days, but “with our budget constraints, With our reserves being down to 14 percent and I have heard somewhere they are going down to eight to 11 percent,” she said, she knew it would not be possible.
If Dr. Fort’s information was incorrect, that could have been sending an unnecessary negative message about the district’s finances.
No one corrected her and those attending the meeting included Superintendent C. J. Huff, the board of education, and the district’s CFO, Paul Barr, all of whom could have corrected any misinformation.
None of them said a word.
The meeting also included the following:
-Board member Jeff Flowers said his middle-school aged son was thrilled with the new wi-fi on the district’s activity buses. It enabled the younger Flowers to do his homework. The investment was “well worth it,’ the board president said.
-The safe rooms will all include six basketball goals.
-Board member Annie Sharp suggested taking time at a later meeting to talk about what things were done during construction of the new East Middle School that would make it better than the old one and advanced from what was done at the new South or the refurbished North.
-The high school will have an archery club. The board heard a presentation that included the information that 200 students had expressed an interest and that there are currently archery clubs at the five Springfield schools, Seneca, Sarcoxie, and Carl Junction. The startup cost will be $9,000, but some of that money can be obtained through grants from the Missouri Department of Conservation and other sources.
-The interest in archery may go up later this year, C. J. Huff said, noting that the next Hunger Games movie will open November 22.
-The meeting also featured construction updates and presentations on the WEB and All-Pro Dads programs.
I lol'd at the Hunger Games connection to the archery program. Genius.
ReplyDeleteThe spending down of reserves must be a regional thing, other districts are doing it, too. Hope the economy doesn't get rough any time soon. We wouldn't want to eliminate positions to make budget...oh, wait, plenty of extra teachers to get rid of so they are good.
Not teachers in R8....administration & all their TLC people...
ReplyDeleteBy the way I never got paid for unused sick days...had about 60 days still left when I retired!
This situation is appalling. Joplin of all towns should understand the importance of keeping money back for hard times. Instead millions have been squandered and now the reserves are dangerously low. No excuses. Bad management.
ReplyDeleteThis school board will be in prison along with their administrators when an audit is done because they sat in their meetings nodding agreement to the info fed them by these 2 crooks, because they didn't have the brains or egos to question what was going on...:-)
ReplyDeleteWhat a truly fantastic point made, especially in two minutes. Respect.
ReplyDelete