Southwest Dubois School Board grapples with personnel issue
Last month the Southwest Dubois School Board voted 3-2 against a request by a teacher to take five unpaid days off.
The decision was made due to a perceived abuse of the privilege by the board.
Thursday night, the board considered the same issue when it was brought before the board by board member Michael Broeker. This time for two days unpaid time off by the same teacher.
The request passed this time but only because two board members who voted against it last month were absent from the meeting. Boardmembers Shannon Hildebranski and Leslie Petry concurred with with Board President Kevin Wertman in denying the request last month. But, with Hildebranski and Petry absent from Thursday night’s meeting, the two board members who voted for the measure, Chris Neu and Michael Broeker outnumbered Wertman — who voted no again — on the request and it passed 2 to 1.
Neu says that since the granting of unpaid days off has been inconsistently applied in other situations, the board would be in error in not granting the request this time.
Board attorney Phil Schneider stated that the issue of unpaid days off is not a contractual issue, it is done at the discretion of the board.
After several minutes of contentious discussion, Wertman made a motion to disallow requests in the future by teachers for unpaid days off. The new policy would be effective with the 2015-16 school year. It passed unanimously.
Also in the meeting, Tom Schipp of Universal Design Associates presented drawings for the demolition of part of the Maple Park facility due to the building being in disrepair, creating a public health hazard.
The work would include the removal of the large section of the former school and the placement of a permanent outside wall to the remaining structure.
Board members asked about saving a small amount — about 2,000 to 3,000 — of the old bricks that could be used for the renovation of the front of the building.
Schipp advised that the issue should be handled apart from the demolition quote. He explained that taking each the process of removing each individual brick and removing the mortar would be very labor intensive and would in turn drive up the cost of the demolition by contractors.
He stated that it would be less expensive to install a new metal fascia or using new bricks. He presented the board with a sample of the metal fascia.
Schipp offered that the base quote could include the metal fascia with new bricks as an option.
With that stipulation, the board passed a request to advertise for bids on the project as specified.
Since the story doesn’t provide the reason for the unpaid days off request (did the teacher run out of paid time, or is he/she too new to have any paid time off?), not sure this was a good decision by the board to simply no longer consider such a request. Things happen, and on rare occasions people may need unpaid time off if, for instance, their vacation and other time off for a period is exhausted and a serious personal matter unexpectedly arises. Two to five days doesn’t seem unreasonable. Understand there are many other circumstances and variables to consider – but considered they should be, rather than approving a motion for an easy way out (to simply not allow or consider future requests). A better motion would have been to require a full board present, or no more than one member absent, when considering such matters.
The teacher in question used all of their personal days in the fall and then asked for five additional unpaid days to go on a special trip their spouse won.