NSB accepts transfers
ROSSTON – Nevada’s School Board breezed through its agenda for June’s regular board meeting.
The panel approved chances to the district and school handbooks. Superintendent Rick McAfee told the board 123 new policies were changed during the latest legislative session, totaling more than 700 pages. He reminded the board these changes are now laws and the option of whether or not to approve them was pretty much moot – unless the board wanted problems down the road.
The changes to the student handbook, he said, reflect the changes made to the district’s new policies. He added the handbook needed to be approved at the June meeting so it could go into effect when school starts on Aug. 19.
In other business, the board accepted three students from Camden Fairview in a board-to-board transfer. The students will be in grades four, six and eight next year. McAfee said now that the Camden district has opened the doors for transfer, Nevada could be getting more students from there.
The board approved contract addendums for those with unused leave and who worked extra duty during the year as required by law. This, McAfee said, also has to be approved at the June board meeting.
Three new employees were hired – a new middle school English teacher, a second grade teacher and a bus driver/classroom aide.
Principal Jason Arrington said things have been quiet since school ended, and all open positions have been filled. He said the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) have been working to whittle frameworks down into essential standards to make it easier to know where students are when it comes to their education.
He said the district will be going to web-based lessons for those days when inclement weather prevents students from coming to school. This, McAfee told the board, will allow the students to make up their homework without having to extend the school year.
In talking about essential skills, McAfee said they should show what students should be learning by cutting out extras teachers can’t get to anyway. This will make things more manageable and students will get more out of their educational time as they’ll be taught the most important aspects of a course. He added it’ll be a long process, but will help the students and make the district more accountable.
McAfee compared education to rungs on a ladder, saying when a rung is missing, it makes things more difficult for students. This will allow the district to find a way to “replace” the rung or go around it without the student losing any ground. The district, he said, will be identifying skills so students will know what’s expected of them, and a more detailed syllabus will be provided to the students showing what’s expected of them as well.
The next board meeting is scheduled for July 25 at 7 p.m.