Daniel Prince
Policies deal with state-mandated unencumbered time, support staff educational leave
At Monday night’s meeting of the Union County Board of School Trustees, Personnel Director Jeff Stribble presented first reading of two board policies. The first deals with unencumbered time, which is something that state legislators passed last year and must be enacted for the next school year. All elementary school teachers in grades K-5 and all special education teachers in all grades through high school must be given 30 minutes of encumbered time in their day without any assigned duties or responsibilities. The time cannot be interrupted by meetings with administration or parents, and it must be given during the instructional day, rather than at the beginning or end of the day. Stribble said implementing the policy will be harder than the legislators thought. He said the district is consulting with other districts to see what their solutions are, and they will provide a compliance plan in the future. The law states that if principals don’t comply with the policy, they could lose their administrative licenses. There is also a provision for penalties if a local school board doesn’t comply with the policy. Superintendent Joey Haney said it will likely take some more after school time to get in all the 504 and IEP meetings and other things. We’ll follow this as the policy progresses through its second reading next month and ultimate implementation.
The other policy addressed Support Staff Leaves and Absences. The major change, according to Stribble, is to formalize the process for requesting and getting educational leave for student teaching. The leave would be unpaid, but the district would hold the person’s position and they maintain their state benefits while they are out.
The school board unanimously approved a motion that employees A and B not be reported for breach of contract to the SC Department of Education. That motion originated from a discussion the board had in executive session.
The board also unanimously approved the personnel report, which included several new hires for next year.
We’ll have more from the meeting tomorrow.