Ten Sleep school board installs leadership governance

During their meeting Monday, Aug. 12, the Washakie County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees approved a plan to implement “leadership governance” in their operation moving forward.

Superintendent Annie Griffin introduced the concept as establishing a framework for what it means to be a board member. This practice entails putting roles and responsibilities in place for board members and giving clarity and focus to their goals as a board. A practice that has already been implemented in some neighboring districts, Griffin said that a key benefit of leadership governance is having a training regimen for new board members led by former members that will quickly make them effective members of the board.

The leadership governance the Ten Sleep school board adopts would be unique to them, according to Griffin, and pending approval they would begin work as early as next month to build it from the ground up.

The motion to move forward with leadership governance was approved with four votes for and one against, with the vote against coming from Jared Lyman. He voiced his stance, saying, “I’m always wary of shoehorning everybody into a manner of thinking when the point of a schoolboard is to bring people with different ideas together … I don’t see as much value as others do in that.”

The board will begin monthly work sessions to build their own form of leadership governance; the scheduling for these sessions is yet to be determined.

NEW BUILDING

Superintendent Griffin gave the following update on the progress of the construction of the new school building:

“The bus loop is now concrete and the fencing is starting to go up to secure the site for the start of the school year. There is carpet in some of the lower classrooms. The built-in benches in the commons area near the elementary classrooms are taking shape. The scaffolding is gone from the heart space and the ship lap is completed. The beams in the heart space are also stained and beautiful. The project is scheduled for substantial completion near our move in week which will begin Dec. 16.”

She confirmed during the meeting that the district is on track to move into the new building by the start of the second semester.

POLICY

After some work to determine the necessity of three separate categories of vacation leave policy, Griffin reported that there is a need to maintain a separate policy for superintendent vacation leave. She explained that any redundancy between that policy and the certified staff vacation policy was removed.

The following policies were approved on second reading with changes to how they appeared at first reading:

Policy 2.24, Superintendent Vacation Leave – Removed redundant information, changed maximum carryover days from 5 to 7.5 to make it uniform with policy for all other staff.

Policy 3.37, Certified Staff Vacation Leave – omitted some words for the sake of clarity.

Policy 4.21, Classified Staff Vacation Leave – omitted some words for the sake of clarity.

All three policies now include a sentence stating, “If an employee uses all annual leave and accumulated sick leave and more sick time is needed, an employee must use vacation days before requesting from the sick bank or taking unpaid leave.”

Policy 5.21, Attendance Regulations was approved on second reading with no changes from the first reading. The change in policy is removal of a line that establishes a clear-cut consequence of an inability to earn credits if a student acquires over 10 absences in a semester.

The policies were approved as a group, with four votes in favor and Jared opposed. Lyman said that his vote stems from an issue he has with the change to Policy 5.21, Attendance Regulations. He said, “It’s not the way that I want to go,” in regards to the change.

AUDIT REPORT

James Seckman of Seckman & Thomas Certified Public Accountants was present at the meeting to provide a brief summary of his team’s findings in the Ten Sleep school district’s annual audit from the fiscal year of 2023-2024. He reported a “clean audit,” with no significant deficiencies to speak. He praised Business Manager Rachel Casteel for her work in her third year as the district’s business manager.

The board unanimously moved to approve the annual audit.

OTHER

An additional English Language part-time paraprofessional position was approved, to be funded using Title II grant funds.

During executive session, a school employee’s application was approved to concealed carry.