The Emporia board of education re-elected Grant Riles as president and Mary Helmer as vice president for the current fiscal year at a meeting Wednesday evening in the Mary Herbert Learning Center. The board also unanimously approved annual appointments during its first meeting with new board members Mike Helbert, Angie Schreiber and Glen Strickland.
The board set meeting dates for the year for the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, with the exception of November, December and March, when there will be only one meeting per month.
Schreiber questioned the policy that prevents students from being kept past 6 p.m. by teachers on Wednesdays. She said the district seems to have a policy -- written or unwritten -- with the ministerial alliance that students will not be kept late on Wednesdays, which is a church night for many local churches.
"And yet we, as a board, ask parents or whoever else wants to be at our board meeting, to come at seven," Schreiber said. "... I guess my question is, 'Why did we switch to Wednesday nights when we don't allow our other teachers to keep students, etc."'"
Board member Mike Crouch responded that most schools schedule athletic events, music programs, and other activities on Tuesday nights, when board meetings formerly were held.
Helmer added that board member often are requested to attend those programs.
"We want to be at our kids' things as well," Crouch said. "That was some of the thought behind it."
Strickland commented, "Perhaps we should examine that other policy."
Superintendent John Heim said that Wednesdays were considered family nights by the district, which does not have a written policy on the subject.
The board passed the resolution 6-1 to approve the meeting dates as presented, with Schreiber casting the dissenting vote.
A request for $68,463.37 for new custodial equipment received approval after an explanation of how specifications were determined.
"How do we determine what the proper specs are on this equipment and who do we turn to to come up with this?" Helbert asked. "Do we have some objective criteria we use?"
Dave Krumme and Hernandez explained that specifications are researched by talking to people in the district and in other districts and looking up specs on the Internet.
"Mike, it is a good question," Hernandez told Helbert. "It'll come up again, not just on custodial equipment but on all kinds of bids. ... They write the specs according to what they know is good and get bids. In this case there were a few items that were not low bid." Those items did not meet specifications, however, and the next-low bid was accepted from Four State Maintenance Supply.
The equipment will be used to take care of new carpet that will replace tile at Logan Avenue School.
Patricia Smiley, director of integrated services, came before the board for approval of a request to purchase "Imagine It" and corrective reading materials for the district. Because both will be purchased from the same company, Smiley said that she was asking for approval to make sure the purchases do not violate state statute, which allows purchase up to $20,000 without board approval.
The combined purchases will total approximately $24,000.
"We decided to err on the side of caution," Smiley said. "This is a technicality to make sure that we are in compliance with the bid law."
The board unanimously approved the request.
The board also approved a Home Rule resolution for a similar reason.
The state's Home Rule statute "means that we can pass policies that we determine to be good for our students, whether there's a state statute that allows them or not," Heim said. "Previously, we've only been able to do things that state statute spells out that we do. The state school board recommends we pass it just to cover ourselves."
In other action, the board:
-- elected Mike Helbert as representative to the Emporia Recreation Commission board of directors and Angie Schreiber to the Flint Hills Technical College board.
-- unanimously approved accepting a $583,710 Foreign Language Assistance Program grant that will stretch over a three-year period.
-- made the following appointments and designations: Norma Stinnett, clerk; Karen Flood, deputy clerk; Theresa Davidson, clerk pro-tem;p Susan Hernandez, treasurer, hearing officer for meal applications, and food service representative; Marie Hazlett, deputy treasurer; Tom Krueger, attorney; Diane Jensen, all principals and assistant principals, truancy officers; Capitol Federal Savings, Commerce Bank and Trust, ESB Financial, First Community Bank, Lyon County State Bank, Emporia Credit Union, and Emporia State Federal Credit Union, depositories of school funds; Emporia Gazette, official paper; and Karen Yeager, Kansas Public Employees Retirement System representative.
-- heard reports from Angie Schreiber, board representative on the Flint Hills Technical College board of directors, and Mike Crouch, board representative for Head Start.
-- approved an agreement with Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company for a 403(b) plan for the district's most-recently retired employees.