Welcome back to the 2023-24 school year at WCS!
The school board policy committee met on August 7th at 6pm.
The agenda for the policy meeting can be viewed here.
A link to the audio from the meeting here.
The administration was apparently busy this summer creating new policies. They reviewed 21 at this meeting. All but one of these has been submitted for its first and final reading at the August 21st board meeting.
Policies that you might be interested in:
Code of Conduct – Thanks to Donna Clements for requesting that restorative justice be removed as a requirement. It is now optional and only for minor infractions.
There was much discussion around the 5.307 – Physical Assault Leave, 3.205 – Security and 3.204 – Threat Assessment Team policies.
Specifically, around what options the board has if a parent “bullies” a teacher by sending repeated emails. Such as maybe asking them to remove the pride flag from their classroom? One of the board members asked if they could discipline the parents. Wow!
Thanks to a new state law, the board has updated their policy 6.4001 on Student Surveys. Parents now have to opt in before the district can send students any surveys. Again, some of the board members were very frustrated and said this will likely mean they won’t get any responses. This is a win as the district typically uses this data against the parents. One example that was given during the policy meeting was firearms in the home. Yep, some of the board are upset that they now can’t ask students on a survey if the parents have firearms. However, they quickly reminded us that if the student is applying to be on a IEP, they can still ask this question.
Another policy that they claim they had to create due to state law is a policy on home school students – 6.202. It gives the district the ability to directly request from home school parents their children’s attendance records, verify that the parent that is teaching has at least a high school diploma or GED, that they cooperate with the district in administering appropriate “tests” given by the TN Education Commission, submit proof that “health services and examinations as required by state law” have been given to the home school student, hire a tutor if the parent has an illness or is inadequate to teach a specific subject and if these are no met, giving the superintendent the ability to “take formal action to bring the child into compliance”. The good news is that as long as you are a member of a state recognized umbrella organization, none of these requirements apply. At least for now. However, it is still suspicious that they are creating this policy. The superintendent event mentioned at the meeting that WCS has no staff to be able to enforce this.
The August work session is scheduled for Thursday, August 17th at 6pm.
The agenda is here.
The link to the livestream has not been published yet. However, it will be on WC-TV.
The good news is that there is no red flag resolution listed on the work session agenda. This was threatened by Eric Welch at the May work session.
There are only 2 other items of note on the work session agenda aside from the policies discussed above.
One is the approval of the ESSER 3.0 funds. Again, more “mental health professionals”. And when the district spends the remainder of these $1.7 million federal funds, we can only guess that the district will ask to yet again increase the school budget, thus increasing our taxes to maintain them. I have heard from a few parents that have evidence of these WCS counselors discussing gender options with children without informing parents. This is how the schools are now going to get around laws and keep information from parents, all under the guise of mental health. More federal money equals more federal regulation and more federal control over our liberties. We should never have taken these ESSER funds.
The final item to note on the agenda is the appointment of an ethics committee. Three board members will be on this committee (the policy requires at least 2 members from the board, so the chair could have appointed a staff member or community member to the other position). This committee will serve for 12 months to review any ethics complaints that are submitted against any district employee or school board member per board policy 1.106. The three members that have been appointed are Jay Galbreath, Sheila Cleveland and Rick Wimberly.
The time period to sign up for the August 21, 2023 meeting will be Thursday, August 17, 2023, beginning at 12 p.m. through noon on Monday, August 21, 2023.
To be considered to speak, please email the following items to: [email protected]
Your First and Last Name
Complete Address
Your Topic of Comment
Any Organization You Represent
