By Julie Johansen
A larger than average number of teachers attended the Emery County School Board meeting on Wednesday at Emery High School. Courtney Justice represented the Emery Educators Association as spokeswoman. The school board explained the state-mandated Teacher Student Assessment Act, which allows 40% of the money to be applied to teachers’ salaries. The board had, however, decided that only 30% would be assigned to teacher’s salaries and the remainder was to be used for training in the social, mental health and literacy areas.
The board members explained that these were the areas in which they felt teachers needed the extra help and training. The teachers responded they felt that this was very discouraging to faculties and staff in each of the schools and described feeling unappreciated. Many teachers also felt that the decisions had been made without their association’s input and asked for more transparency regarding policies in the future. The board replied that it would be very minimal addition to the salaries once it was distributed across the entire district, but upon a motion to change their decision and use the 40% for an increase in teacher’s salaries, a unanimous vote of approval followed.
The board also pledged to make the teachers more aware of happenings on a district level via email and public notice pages.
Also reported during the meeting was that the School Land Trust Plans from each school had been reviewed by the board and were approved. Capital outlay bids for four large projects were also discussed, including roofing at Castle Dale Elementary, fire alarms for Castle Dale and Cottonwood elementary schools as well as San Rafael Middle School, gym floor resurfacing in all of the secondary schools, as well as security locks on Castle Dale, Cleveland, Cottonwood and San Rafael that can be controlled from inside.
Emery High Principal Steven Gordon reported to the board that Emery High had 35 Academic Allstate recipients, 341 students on the honor roll last term, one Sterling Scholar winner and seven runner-ups, and 80 senior students with over 3.5 GPAs. He also announced that the school had received its final accreditation results and that by next year, they would have 300 Chromebooks to be used throughout the school. Gordon also reported that students have completed the end-of-year testing. He also paid tribute to several teams that have placed very well in competitions throughout this past school year.
To conclude, superintendent Larry Davis congratulated the district’s business department that has once again received the Achievement of Excellence.