Policy debate using vacation time sparked over injury

Washakie County School District No. 2’s ‘Annual Leave’ policy came under review by the board of trustees during their meeting on June 10, sparked by a grievance from Technology Director Boyd Whitlock.

Earlier in the school year, Whitlock suffered a broken ankle that rendered him unable to work for an extended period. Whitlock anticipated that he would get to use his sick days while recovering with a broken ankle, but found that he had to use his annual vacation days up first. He said, “I have 78 days of accrued sick time, and to have to use 100% of my vacation time prior to tapping into that seems a little excessive.”

He continued, “I think that most of our employees want to work; they want to provide a wonderful environment for the students, and they’re dedicated to their jobs. I don’t feel like I’m any different; I rarely take time off unless I absolutely have to. When you see a policy being interpreted like this, it created a situation for me where I felt pushed to come back to work before I was really ready, because I couldn’t afford to lose all my vacation days.”

Policy 3.38, Annual Leave states, “Current personal days must be used before an employee may take accrued sick leave.” The policy does not address “vacation time” for 12-month employees.

Under the current interpretation of the policy, Whitlock was forced to use vacation days that he earns annually as a 12-month employee of the school district.

Board member Jared Lyman said, “I’ve been employed in a few different positions over the years and that’s never been the case.” Lyman asked fellow board members if they had encountered similar policies in any of their previous employment, to which all who responded said that they had not.

Superintendent Annie Griffin, however, said, “I’ve never worked in a school district that did not have it that way.”

Whitlock noted that he did not take any issue with the way Policy 3.38 was written, as he saw no issue with its application to ‘personal days’ and ‘sick days’. He explicitly stated that his issue was with how the policy was applied regarding his vacation time.

Griffin said, “It’s different when someone has vacation time (12-month employees) and I need to look at that.”

Revisions for Policy 3.38 were tabled until the July meeting, which will be on July 17, a Wednesday.

ATTENDANCE POLICY

Supt. Griffin presented Policy 5.21, Attendance Regulations — a policy drafted by Principal Robert Griffin that signals a shift away from punitive measures at the Ten Sleep School. The superintendent stated that there were two major components up for change; that students would be allowed a total of 10 absences — excused or unexcused — per class per semester, and that summer school makeup days can be assigned for students to earn credits that they would have missed by exceeding the limit. This will replace a line that previously stated “any further absences may result in an inability to earn credit in that class for the semester.”

This policy will effectively install summer school at Ten Sleep Schools, and will give students an opportunity to do remedial work in the summer to make up for absences rather than lose credit outright. Griffin stated that students who were assigned summer school and did not attend would still be at risk of losing credit, but this decision would be at the discretion of administration.

Lyman argued against removing the loss of credits from the policy, stating that he believes students who do not put forth any effort should not receive credit. He also believed that current policy worked on a “case-by-case” basis, because students could follow an appeal process depending on the circumstances of their absence and possibly receive credits. He did state that he did not have an issue with summer school.

Policy 5.21 was tabled until the July meeting.

The following policies were passed on first reading:

Policy 3.62, District Meal Per Diem – Per Diem policy for district employees.

Policy 5.44, Grievance Procedure and Policy 5.53, Parental Rights – these policies were drafted by the school’s legal advisor to bring the district in line with Wyoming statute 21-3-135, the “Parental Rights Bill.”

The following policies were passed on second reading:

7.02, Athletic Director; 7.03, Coaches; 7.04, Middle School Scheduling Limitations; 7.05, Transportation; 7.06, General Policies Affecting Athletics; 7.08, Travel Meals; 7.09, Activity Eligibility; 7.10 Post Season Play; 7.11, Student Dress-Interscholastic Activities; 7.12, Chaperones of Out-Of-District Sponsored Activities.

OTHER BUSINESS

In other business at Monday’s meeting:

•$106,000 was requested from the district’s major maintenance fund to replace servers and switches that run core electronic systems in the school. In the immediate future, these will be replacing equipment at the old school while it is still in use. At the time of the transition into the new school, the equipment will be installed there. The amount was approved.

•The resignation of custodian Karen Krahn was approved.

•Ten Sleep School’s class of 2024 was approved to use their remaining class funds to purchase a bench for the new school.

•The 2024-2025 student handbook was approved.