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City School Board seeks public input for proposed school calendar revisions
BRANDON HUTCHESON
The Dyersburg City School Board convened Monday evening at 5:30 p.m. inside the project room at Dyersburg High School. The board heard several items of business, including a proposal for revisions of the upcoming school calendar, the 2020-2021 budget, and COVID-19 procedures for employees.
All members of the board were present.
Though the school board passed the 2020-2021 academic calendar in December 2019, Worley presented a second option, due to students missing the last nine weeks in the classroom.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen. To sit back and wait for guidance from the state and guidance from different places – that’s not my strong suit,” Dyersburg High School principal and incoming director Kim Worley stated. “I want to have some options in what can take place.”
She noted the city school’s administrative team reviewed an option to change the academic calendar, following numerous colleges and other educational institutions.
Worley noted the reasoning behind the proposed change to the academic calendar for other institutions is the belief schools could be shut down for an extended period of time if another wave of COVID-19 was to occur.
Referring to a proposed, revised calendar for the upcoming 2020-2021 school year, Worley said, “I first proposed this calendar to the admin group and said we have a lot of breaks during the first semester, which is when we’re not sick a lot. When we looked at our attendance last year, we dropped almost a whole percentage point in December, January, and February.”
The proposed revisions of calendar would attempt to maximize classroom instruction. Teachers come back to school on Monday, July 27 with inservice scheduled July 27-July31. Students would report for the first day of school on Monday, August 3.
The first semester would have class in session for 92 days, with only September 7 (Labor Day) and November 26-27 (Thanksgiving) as breaks. There would not be a fall break or Fair Day in the calendar.
Students would also have class from Nov. 30 – Dec. 11, then have a 5-week holiday break from Dec. 14 – Jan. 18, 2020.
Teachers would return to school during the second semester for an inservice day on Friday, Jan. 15, while students’ first day back would be Tues., Jan. 19.
The second semester would have 88 days of classes, with the only break being April 2 (Good Friday). There would not be a spring break scheduled. The final day of school, according to the proposed calendar would be May 21, 2021.
“Is that a good idea? Nobody knows,” Worley continued. “We sent an email out to the staff for feedback. There are pros and cons in doing this. You all passed a calendar with breaks in there, and there are a lot of cons to changing the calendar. But we also know that our students have gaps in their learning. They missed nine weeks of school. We’ve got to make up some time. The most important thing is to keep learning.”
Worley asked if the proposed amended calendar would be something the board would want to explore?
“Board member Jim Coy Houston asked if other school systems are leaning toward revising their calendars as Worley proposed?
Worley said no one within the Northwest Group had an opinion, while East Tennessee is considering amending their calendars.
“I think it’s a great idea, but if you’re a teacher in the system you really enjoy those breaks,” said Gleyn Twilla. “This is going to be a difficult calendar for our staff, but the education of our students is the key factor. We’ve got to cram a lot into them because we don’t know what’s going to happen. As Kim said, we’re nine weeks behind.”
“Personally, I like the other calendar better,” Worley said.
“Yes. This [proposed] calendar is terrible as far as teaching. But we are nine weeks behind,” added Twilla.
“We can’t wait until August to make decisions. We have to make these decisions now,” continued Worley. “That’s why we can’t hardly wait until the state department gives us answers. We’ve got to move forward.”
Board members noted they would like to hear input from parents and educators over the next 2 weeks about the proposed calendar.
“They can contact any of us [board members],” board chairman Dr. Scott Self stated.
The board plans to hold a special-called meeting on, or near, July 15 to further discuss the proposed calendar.
Worley also provided procedures for daily work for employees during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as procedures if a school employee were to test positive for the virus.
“We felt like it was time that we have some procedures in place for next year. We know we will have to change some of these things as we go along,” Worley said.
She added the system contacted other businesses within the community and copied many of their procedures.
According to the procedures, each morning prior to reporting to work, all employees are required to complete a questionnaire pertaining to symptoms regarding COVID-19. Answers are collected by the central office and will be sorted for symptomatic employees, which is defined as an employee with a temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher, exhibits cough, shortness of breath, sudden onset of fatigue, chills, muscle aches, sore throat, or new loss of taste or smell.
“Each day, the employees we still have at work – maintenance, admin, staff – each day they have to answer several questions and have to take their temperature before they come to work,” said Worley. “Mrs. Kim Yeiter developed an app that’s on our phones, and the staff member enters their name, answer all of those questions, takes their temperature, and that goes into a log. Then it is submitted to Julie [Norville] at central office. The backup person is Sandy [Baker].”
An employee with the aforementioned symptoms is excluded from work at least three days have passed without the use of fever-reducing medications, a doctor’s note stating one is clear to return to work, or a negative COVID test from the health department or other healthcare provider is obtained.
If an employee has tested positive for COVID-19, the employee is to stay at home for at least 14 days or the required time based on instructions from the health department. The employee should have their doctor or health department fax their positive test sheet to Julie Norville at the central office.
It also mentions that the employee will not be identified by name to their co-workers as having contracted the virus in compliance with ADA.
Any employee who tests positive must be released by the health department prior to returning to work.
Budget:
The consent items, including the approval of the general purpose budget for the 2020-2021 school year, were as follows:
1. The meeting’s agenda
2. Last month’s minutes
3. Authorization for the Director to file necessary budgets for 2020-2021; and budget revisions and transfer requests in the Federal Projects Consolidated Application and Plan, including Title I, Title IA-Neglected, Title IIA, Title III, Title IV, Title V, IDEA and Pre-K for the 2019-2020 school year
4. Authorization for the Director to make necessary category and line item adjustments to amend GP (general purpose) budget for 2019-20 school year
5. Approval of GP budget of $22,144,183 for 2020-21 school year
6. Approval of the cafeteria budget of $1,938,500 for 2020-21 school year. Authorization of the Director to make necessary line item adjustments to amend the cafeteria budget for 2019-20 school year.
7. Amend Textbook Adoption for DPS.
Speaking of the proposed 2020-2021 budget, Worley said, “We don’t have any numbers yet for the revenues, but what we did was cut out some revenues from the City, sales tax revenues, to make some adjustments there. We used some of that CARES Act money to help alleviate some of those expenses we were feeling. We also used some excess revenue that we had this year to buy some of those expenses we normally incur, like textbooks and chromebooks, to get us over that hump. We cut out quite a bit of expenses, a little over $1 million from our budget to hopefully get us through next year. The state is asking every group to cut out 12 percent of their budget. We did not cut out 12 percent of our budget,” Worley explained. “They also promised us the BEP would be fully funded, so we feel really good about that.”
General Purpose Budget expenditure line items were as follows:
- Elementary & Secondary: $11,790,552 (decrease of $83,100 from 19-20)
- Alternative Instructional Program: $227,487 (decrease of $115,150 from 19-20)
- Special Education Program: $1,759,905 (increase of $14,910)
- Vocational Education Program: $407,085 (increase of $34,476)
- Attendance: $108,818 (decrease of $555)
- Health Services: $207,199 (increase of $4,888)
- Other Student Support: $723,727 (decrease of $164,268)
- Instructional Staff: $507,906 (decrease of $59,904)
- Alternative Support: $95,045 (decrease of $19,292)
- Special Education Staff: $57,408 (decrease of $42,528)
- Vocational Education Staff: $48,095 (increase of $33,128)
- Technology: $381,516 (decrease of $884)
- Board of Education Services: $819,564 (decrease of $79,474)
- Office of the Superintendent: $308,956 (decrease of $85,148)
- Office of the Principal Services: $1,517,868 (increase of $5,321)
- Fiscal Services: $286,338 (increase of $375)
- Operation of Plant: $2,184,608 (decrease of $84,614)
- Maintenance of Plant: $515,982 (decrease of $13,145)
- Transportation: $1,800 (no change)
- Community Services (ESP): $73,405 (increase of $8,212)
- Early Childhood Education: $1,077 (increase of $577)
- Capital Outlay: $22,840 (increase of $3,635)
Durbin asked Julie Norville to explain how the school system would integrate the CARES Acts funds into Federal Projects.
“The Federal Budgets are used for specific purposes. The CARES Act is what’s coming into play because of COVID. We’re working on that right now, and we’ll submit that to the state next week.”
Norville added funds from the CARES Act would be $860,000, with Dyersburg City Schools receiving $832,000 and Christ Classical Academy getting $28,000.
Durbin asked the board to approve the current fiscal year amendments to the general purpose budget to $23,050,000, an increase of $260,277.
“The increase of revenue we have gotten from this year will cover that,” said Durbin. “It was a pretty good year from a revenue standpoint. You also have to remember our revenues have a two-month lag. The impact of the economic downturn has not been felt yet in it’s fullest impact.”
The board also reviewed and approved Policy 5.3051 (FFCRA Leave) under second reading. A motion to approve the policy was made by Dr. Matt Tosh and seconded by Carlos Doss.
As mentioned in May 2020, the policy was in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following announcements and student success stories were made:
- Julie Norville will become the new board secretary beginning in July. Current board secretary Lyn Taylor will remain Principal of the College Street Campus.
- The Dyersburg High School graduating class of 2020 was offered a record-breaking $9.8 million in scholarships.
- Over 97,000 meals were served while school was out during the COVID-19 pandemic by City School cafeteria workers and volunteers.
- Tom Mathis will take part in the WestTeach Program
- Brittney Allen and Brenda Gibson of Dyersburg Intermediate were selected to take part in SCORE’s Educator Fellowship class
Dr. Self also noted the next regular school board meeting will occur on July 13 at 5:30 p.m.
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.