Local News – Monday, February 22nd, 2021

The Salem R-80 Board of Education met Thursday evening at the high school library. At the meeting, Superintendent Lynne Reed saluted all the R-80 board members for Board Appreciation Week. Reed reported the January Membership numbers were updated to include 1038 R-80 district students and another 293 rural school students for a total of 1,331 students. Reed went on to say that she has been talking with numerous insurance brokers in an attempt to get better insurance numbers for the next school year. She also discussed with the board a request from the Northwood R-4 district for help with a band instructor for two hours. Reed conferred with High School Principal Marty Anderson and said Salem could drop the guitar class and second chance band class that would allow the Assistant Band Director Anderson to help out the Northwood School. Reed indicated Northwood would pickup 2/7ths of Anderson’s salary the rest of the year. Reed also wanted to thank the maintenance as well as custodial staff for their work in clearing the walks and drives at the Salem R-80 schools. She also brought up that two bus leases will come up for at the end of the school year and the district may want to purchase busses instead of leasing them. All the building principals gave their reports before High School Vocal Instructor Elaine Russell discussed an annual trip to compete in the national choir competition. Russell said the only national competition this year would be April 14th through 19th in Orlando with very stringent requirements. Anyone that goes must be tested for COVID-19, plus temperatures will be taken twice each day. Russell said the Salem hospital said they would work with the school in getting the students, chaperones and families the tests they need within a 24-hour turnaround. She went on to say the USA Tour bus also has their rules that the group would have to abide by including required wearing of masks at all times. Russell said her survey of choir families showed seven said yes, nine said no and five were flexible. The board discussed this at length and then voted 5-1 to allow the trip to occur provided that there was no COVID-19 outbreak in Dent County and enough families want to attend. Superintendent Reed announced she had created a policy and a form for community members who wanted the board to address an item or who needed to speak to the board on an issue. Reed suggested creating a time limit if a community member addressed the board and the board agreed to five minutes while also approving the policy and form. The board also approved the continuation of co-op football, track and cross-country with R-80 and the rural schools for the next school year. The board accepted the resignation of transportation director Bob Moreland, high school science teacher Emily Atkinson, high school English teacher Janet Roach and library para-professional Vicki Lawson. They also accepted the retirement of technology director Jim White. These will all be effective at the end of the current school year. In closed session, the board approved extending the contracts of middle school principal Rich Parks, upper elementary school principal Melanie Wisdom, and high school principal Marty Anderson through the 2022-2023 year. They also approved extending high school assistant principal Clay Moody through the 2022-2023 year, extending elementary school principal Dr. Herman Blau for two years through the 2022-2023 year, and also extending the contract of Jodi Heavin through the 2022-2023 year. The board went on to offer contracts to Brooke Roger as the high school business teacher and to Eric Meyers for high school English. The board also approved moving Janelle Frederick to the administrative assistant salary schedule with a 10-month position. The meeting was then adjourned.

On Saturday, the City of Salem Board of Alderman held a special meeting called by Aldermen Kevin James Greg Parker. They approved Bill # 3474, creating an ordinance instituting an employee voluntary leave donation policy. This policy allows employees to voluntarily provide assistance to coworkers by donating leave hours to employees in critical need of leave due to a serious health condition of the employee or a member of the employee’s immediate family. The board then discussed Ordinance # 3436 regarding the canceling of meetings. The original ordinance states that Alderman and other city meeting will be cancelled if the Salem R-80 School cancels classes due to weather. The intent was to give the Mayor and Alderman the possibility of canceling meeting due to weather if the need arises. The ordinance should read that the meetings may be canceled at the discretion of the Mayor and Board President and not will be cancelled. The ordinance will be placed on the next regularly scheduled meeting agenda for further discussion. The board then went into closed session to discuss Attorney/Client Privilege.