BY IVAN SANDERS

STAR STAFF

ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com

The Elizabethton City School Board met in regular session on Tuesday evening inside the Mack Pierce Board Room with several items to review as they moved forward to the beginning of a new school year.

One of those items was to approve an additional Assistant Principal position at Elizabethton High School, which drew some questions from school board member Danny O’Quinn about the need for an additional administrator at the school.

“We have not had a significant increase in student population and we have operated with a principal and three administrators for many years now whether it be a CTE director and two assistant principals or three assistant principals,” stated O’Quinn.

“I am tight — I do the budget at work and I don’t like spending a lot of money if I don’t think it’s needed and I just don’t see a need for it.

“We have to be good stewards of taxpayer money and I think we have to think with our heads instead of our hearts sometime and I don’t know if there is enough information for me to vote yes to creating a position that we haven’t needed in many years.

“We are getting ready to spend $65,000 to repair chillers and that would be about the salary of that position.”

New Elizabethton High School principal Jon Minton came before the board to explain why the request was being made for the additional position.

“In just the few short weeks I have been there, I have taken a look at some of the prior responsibilities and positions and of course many of you are familiar with how those have been delegated in each of those positions with the assistant principals, the CTE Director, and the lead principal,” Minton said.

“One of the things that I know we are going to be facing this year in addition to as Dr. Gardenhour has told you the need for someone to focus primarily on curriculum is testing has gone back to a paper and pencil format.

“Shifting back to that transition, I was thinking about the number of weeks and the amount of time it takes in preparation and planning it takes because we don’t have a full-time testing coordinator and we are looking at about a third of the year,” Minton continued.

“In addition to that, I do want to place some additional responsibilities not only myself but someone to be in charge of scheduling to work with our student support — our school counselors, our registrar and our counseling secretary to start planning the early phases for next year so we have equal and adequate access for all students and all programs to be represented.

“This will allow our teachers to go home in the summertime with a really solid plan in place of what they are going to be coming back to so our CTE schedule will be aligned for our students.”

“So it’s three things: curriculum development, someone for the paper and pencil testing format for about a third of the year for this year, and someone to meet with faculty and departments throughout the year to meet the need of our students.”

O’Quinn did ask Minton about his prior employment at Science Hill stating that with the student population which totaled roughly 2300 students and noted that Elizabethton was a third of their size with the same amount of assistant principals and that he just couldn’t support the additional position.

The vote to approve the position was 3-2 with board member Eddie Pless joining O’Quinn in the dissenting vote.

In other business, the board approved the recommended price increase in school lunches for the 2019-2020 school year which has more of an impact on West Side Elementary who are no longer a part of the Community Eligibility Program.

Elementary breakfast prices will be $1.30 while lunch will be $2.50. Middle school students will pay $1.35 for breakfast and $2.60 for lunch while high school students will pay $1.40 for breakfast and $2.75 for lunch.

Travis Thompson appeared before the board asking for approval to begin the application process to create a Jr. ROTC program at EHS through the Naval Cadet Corps.

Thompson advised the board that the process would take a while to be approved as the application will go before the Secretary of the Navy for approval and it would be early spring or summer before they would know the decision.

The board also ratified an emergency purchase for repairs by TRANE to the chiller plant at Harold McCormick in the amount of $21,832.00 and the replacement of two drives on the chiller at EHS for $43,336.00 to cover both drives.

Several board policies were approved on first reading.

Lastly, the board approved the contract between Elizabethton City Schools and The Access Program that will be utilized in the Special Education Program.

The board received a copy of the Director of School yearly evaluation that was compiled by board chair Rita Booher.

The next school board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, August 20, at 6:30 p.m. in the Mack Pierce Board Room.