Southwest Dubois County School Corp meeting notes March 20, 2014

The Southwest Dubois School Board met Thursday night and welcomed their newest member to the board.

Attorney Phil Schneider administered the oath of office to Holland resident Leslie Petry prior to the meeting.

Petry will fill out the term of Jerome Buening, who resigned from the board in January. His term ends on December 31, and Petry has expressed her desire to run fo the office in the election this fall.

Petry explained that she had asked about being a board member before Buening resigned, but was thinking that it would be something that she would do after her young children – who are students in the Southwest School System – get older. But, when the opportunity came up, she took the chance to be a part of the board now, rather than wait.

She and the board listened to a Students Against Destructive Decisions policy update from SADD members who asked the board to adopt the seat belt policy. It was tabled to give the board a chance to add the revisions and vote on them in April.

The board approved a Southridge FAA Land Project to help control erosion problems at the Middle School and High School.

Then the board had their longest discussion of the meeting when the agenda item to consider an addition to the Southridge High School Athletic Handbook was introduced by High School Principal Kelly Murphy.

Murphy had a meeting with all of the athletic coaches and Athletic Director Brett Bardwell about making a policy that applies to student athletes.

The policy addition appeared to have a flaw that held student athletes to a higher standard than those in other extracurricular activities. The board wanted to insure that the policy applies equally to those students in other activities as well.

The board also wanted leeway on applying discipline measures so that lesser infractions have lesser consequences.

The board tabled the discussion and asked Murphy to make changes to the policy to reflect the board’s suggestions.

Finally, Superintendent Eineman reported that the last day of school for Southwest Dubois Schools will be on May 22. Seniors will attend school on April 5th and 26th and will be finished with classes on May 20.