BOE has Special Called Meeting to Discuss Updating Board Policies

At a Pickens Board of Education speciall called meeting on Thursday, June 21st, the BOE approved an entension to Superindentent Ben Desper’s residential requirement on his contract and also discussed updating several board policies.
At the beginning of the meeting, the BOE approved a six month residential requirement extension to the contract of Superintendent Desper. Desper became the Picken’s County School’s Superintendent on July 1st, 2011. When Dr. Desper was hired, a part of his contract, the school system gave a year to sell his house in Bartow County, where he was the Associate Superintendent. As of today, Desper has not yet sold his house, and now the BOE has given him an extra 6 months to meet the residential requirements of his contract.

Also in the meeting the BOE discussed updating several school policies.

The first policy the BOE discussed updating was the BOE’s current drug screening policy

The Board’s current drug screening policy only calls for drug screening of bus drivers which includes pre-employment/pre-assignment testing, post-accident testing, random testing, reasonable suspicion testing, and follow-up testing. Now, the board is questioning whether or not testing should also include students and teachers.

The last question, regarding whether or not students involved with extra curricular activities should also be testing, stems from a debate on the issue that other school’s are already having asking should random drug testing be all or nothing? What this means, is that some people believe that if random drug testing occurs that everyone should be testing, while some people believe that the only reason someone should be tested if there is an obvious reason. Also, people believe that if you are going to test one area of the school, such as sports, you must also test another, such as arts. Whatever the case may be, the BOE will soon be making a decision.

Lastly, the BOE is also thinking about updating it’s teacher absence policy. The BOE discussed in the meeting how it believes that teachers are abusing the number of absences they are allowed. Due to financial strains, the BOE expressed how it can no longer afford to allow for teachers to miss days when they are not actually sick. All of these things and more are expected to be adressed at the July regular BOE meeting.