By TARA HETTINGER, Evening News
Tara.Hettinger@newsandtribune.com
The Greater Clark County Schools board approved the recently ratified contract with the teachers association, set up a new system that will make the board more transparent to the community, accepted a donation to the superintendent's salary and much more at their meeting Tuesday night.
The board voted 6-0, with Christina Gilkey absent, in favor of the teachers' 2-year contract, which includes a 0.75 percent raise retroactive to July 1, 2009, and it will open up for negotiations on salary for the second year as well as talks on one contract language issue.
The contract also includes language about teacher layoffs.
"Any staff reductions in Greater Clark County Schools for the 2010-2011 school year will be due to overstaffing and not due to state budget reductions," it stated.
"I think it's a good thing," Nick Wiese, president of the teachers' association, said about the contract. "We can move on and work on other things, like Race to the Top and what we do best, which is teaching."
The board also approved the same amount of a raise for the Greater Clark Service Association, which represents bus drivers and monitors, and for those not represented by a union, such as cafeteria managers, certified supervisors, principals, and health assistants.
The board approved the implementation of BoardDocs, a Web-based service for school board members to replace the binders filled with paperwork for each meeting.
Superintendent Stephen Daeschner said the move will help make the board more transparent. He said the Fridays prior to the upcoming Tuesday meetings, the entire board packet, which includes details of each item that will be voted on as well as the personnel report, will be made public via the Internet.
"It's so transparent," said Becka Christensen, board member, who admits that technology isn't her strongest suit. "I'm going to be in every class and I will strive to do very well on it."
Each board member will get to use a Dell laptop as part of the program. Missy DeArk, board member, said members will get to ask questions on agenda items more efficiently and more quickly with the program.
The cost to the program is $3,700 the first year and $2,700 each year after that. That pays for maintenance, support, training, customization and more. The district will also have to purchase computers for the board members. The approved motion includes buying a laptop for each member, costing $1,077 each.
"It's going to save us a great deal of money, just with the paperwork I've seen since I've been on the board," Christensen said.
The board voted 5-1 in favor of the program and the purchase of the laptops, with Ernie Gilbert, board president, being the sole no vote. Gilbert said he felt the dollars could be spent in a better way for the district, during this down economy.