In the midst of preparations for the upcoming school year, the Emery School Board met for its monthly meeting on Wednesday evening.
Beginning the meeting, board members discussed the approval of new employees. While Superintendent Larry Davis generally reads the names aloud before approval, the board approved for them not to be due to the length of names covering an entire page. Supt. Davis moved that the names and the positions as listed be approved, which was accepted by the rest of the board.
Also discussed was the Emery School District Code of Conduct for Employee Appropriate Behavior. The superintendent also took the reins for this topic, stating that he had distributed it previously and hoped that the board had a chance to review it on their own. In the 2019 legislative session, a new law was passed which stated that in order for school districts to have immunity of liability in the event that an employee is charged with or convicted of acts against children, they must adopt the policy and present it to all employees.
The employees must then sign a document that indicates they have had the training, the date it was received and who presented it. From there, the sheets will be collected and marked on a checklist for accuracy.
The trainings have already begun and they are being moved through slowly. However, in the meantime, the policy must be adopted and will be added to the employee ethical behavior policy. Nothing is in the new policy that should become a question and is all simply dealing with professional behavior of employees toward children. Supt. Davis stated that he is happy to answer any questions posed. The policy was ultimately approved.
The next policy discussed was the benefit and staff leave and absence policy, which was said to be a fairly straightforward update. The update would allow personal leave to be from 10 to 12 days for qualifying employees depending on how long they have been an employee. It was proposed that one section be eliminated due to it being replaced when a catastrophic leave was put into place sometime before, which was agreed upon.
These updates and changes were also approved by the board.