Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home School Board voted 8-0 Monday evening, Marchj 13, to begin negotiating a new contract with People Involved in Education for Sweet Home Charter School.
The charter school is in its 11th year of operation and fifth year of its current contract, which will expire at the end of this school year.
Sweet Home Charter School provides education to 140 students in kindergarten through sixth grade.
Mary Northern, a member of the PIE Board of Directors, said this initiates a 90-day bargaining period between the district and PIE.
Present at the meeting were Sweet Home School Board members Michael E. Adams, Jenny Daniels, Chanz Keeney, Jason Redick, Chairman Mike Reynolds, Angela Clegg, Carol Babcock and Debra Brown. Jason Van Eck was absent.
In other business, the board:
n Received an update from Supt. Tom Yahraes about the transition to a five-day week.
Yahraes said a parent committee has met three times, last week for the final meeting, to provide input on the five-day week. Its recommendations were similar to those of another committee composed of administrators, teachers, classified employees and parents.
The committees recommended the length of a day be 6 hours 30 minutes for elementary and 6 hours 55 minutes for junior high students. The parent committee recommended 7 hours 20 minutes for high schools, while the district committee recommended 7 hours 5 minutes. They also recommended 172 instructional days.
The recommendations are similar to regional averages, Yahraes said. Now he will begin building a calendar for 2016-17. He will send a proposed calendar to certified and classified representatives for feedback.
Normally, he would have asked the board to approve a new calendar this month, according to policy, but with the time it’s taking to work out a new five-day calendar, the board voted 8-0 to suspend the policy requirement.
Yahraes said his goal is to bring a calendar proposal to the board by its April 20 meeting, but some of the schedule is subject to bargaining with the unions.
It could be May before a proposal reaches the board for approval, Yahraes said. Even if approved in April, bargaining could require the calendar to be amended.
n Accepted the resignations of six teachers, Holly Ashcraft, district English as a second language; Jane Lake, special education, Oak Heights; Joanne Wiitala, language arts, Sweet Home High School; Tyson Migliaccio, biology, SHHS; Tim Swanson, fifth grade, Oak Heights; and Patricia Lucas, kindergarten, Hawthorne.
n Held the first reading of several policy updates. The board will hold a second reading at the April 10 board meeting and could approve them. The policies address, nutrition, staff development, academic integrity, animals in district facilities, admissions, homeless students and head lice.
n Renewed and extended teacher contracts following an executive session.