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A long Board of Education meeting at the Demopolis City Schools Central Office began with the announcement of board member Bobby Armstead being ill and unable to attend.

All other members were in attendance.

After quickly approving the agenda and previous meeting minutes, Chief School Financial Officer Morgan Nelson presented a summary of the financials for February and March to the board for approval, which they did.

The board also approved the personnel report. On the report: the retirements of teacher Andrea Dunn of Westside Elementary, and special education aide Darnell (Ricky) Richardson of DHS; the resignations of science teacher Nicole Phillips of DMS, teacher Jessica White of U.S. Jones, and math teacher Carrie Goodman of DHS; new hires of special education teacher Allie Cramer for Westside, math teacher Tracy Robbins for DHS, and science teacher Anna Kate Golden for DMS (pending certification following graduation in May).

Also on the personnel report were new licensed substitute teachers and lists of teachers and aides that will make up the Summer Literacy Camp at Westside and the Summer Numeracy Camp at U.S. Jones.

One new hire not yet made came to light as a state requirement. Beginning in the fall, two new kindergarten students will be in attendance with “unique medical needs.” According to state law, the school system must accommodate the students by way of the constant presence of a school nurse to administer needed medications.

Superintendent Adam Pugh said they intend to hire one registered nurse and keep the two children grouped together. This arrangement will persist for two years, according to state guidelines. The board approved the job description of the new school nurse position.

Moving down the agenda, Pugh requested the board approve inventory dispositions to remove a list of items from the books.

“We have several technological things we need to dispose of,” Pugh said.

The list also included items that were stolen and listed on a police report. The board approved the request.

The board acknowledged a first reading of a new amendment to the tobacco use policy which would prohibit financial contributions to the school system from any business or entity in the tobacco industry.

Also as a first reading was a new testing policy.

“It’s been a practice we’ve done, but it hasn’t been a policy,” Pugh acknowledged as they discussed the item.

Approval of the practice would make it a policy that any student scoring below a 50 on a test would be allowed to be “re-taught” the subject material and then take the test again.

“It’s really hard for students to recover from a test below a 50,” Pugh added, “so we want to be able to help them.”

The board quickly approved the adoption of a local use textbook for Science and Career Technical Education, and moved on to yet another policy issue brought up in the previous meeting.

As decided last meeting, the board will review and if necessary revise each system policy section before posting policies on a public and searchable website database. Pugh presented chapters 1, 2, and 3 to the board, asking for approval. After much discussion they decided that some minor changes were needed in wording to Chapter 3, specifically addressing the word “shall” in regards to including a one minute moment of “quiet reflection” daily.

Board member Olen Kerby suggested the word “may” be used instead, to give each school the option on any given day and prevent an inadvertent policy violation.

Board member Aliquippa Allen also suggested a change to the format of the opening pages for readability and comprehension and asked that she be allowed to make these changes to present to the board. A decision was made to vote on the policies at the meeting in May, after the proposed changes were completed.

Circling back to another item from the last meeting, Pugh reminded everyone that he had asked for a quote to expand the cut areas of grass on campuses. According to Pugh, the quote received was “too high” at $45,500, and his request was now to hire an additional person to cut and trim the extra areas who could also help with basic landscaping and unskilled maintenance tasks.

A salary for the proposed position was not mentioned, but the idea appeared to be that this new role could be filled for less than the $45,500 quote. The board approved the newly created position.

After quickly approving travel for DHS Tennis and Softball teams for upcoming tournaments in Mobile and Montgomery, Curriculum and Instruction Coordinator Derrick Hester gave a brief summary of the results of state testing, which is now completed.

“Thank you to everyone,” he said, commenting on the effort of teachers and staff in the large task.

The next regular board meeting will be held May 19. DHS Graduation will be May 16 at Tiger Stadium.