Midtown Meeting Center and Dress Code Policy updates, along with a Call to Action for the public.
Full meeting video here.
Dress Code Policy
After Dr. Mike Nelson's attempt to bring an abhorrent dress code policy draft that looked like a child wrote it (which they did), this meeting the board got a new dress code that looked like an adult edited it before handing it over. The children in the Student Advisory Group wrote the first draft and the latest draft, and now wants to get the draft through the first reading so they can get parents opinions on the matter.
The SAG students sent out a survey to the district's teachers and found some interesting statistics:
94.6% teachers stated that they have refrained from enforce dress code.
76.5% of teachers say that the dress code policy needs to be reviewed and revised.
Of those teachers that want it revised, 51.1% say that the policy needs to be stricter.
60.4% of students want the policy to be reviewed and revised.
Of those students that want it revised, 91.7% want a more lenient policy. (no duh)
Overall, the current policy is too vague which makes enforcing difficult and so the teachers err on the side of not enforcing, and of course the students want a more lenient policy.
The board likes this second draft of the dress code policy a lot more than the first but still does not believe it's perfect yet.
Midtown Meeting Center Expansion
At the September 11th board meeting, Director of Operations Jeff Voeller, along with Superintendent Hocker, were pushing the board to approve a $384,000 bid to expand the Midtown Meeting Center. Hocker said that the current meeting location is too small and the room is booked out almost every day, from 8am-3pm, Monday thru Friday. That it was "so difficult" to find an open space at the Midtown Center, this expansion is extremely necessary. When asked about using a high school auditorium once a month for meetings Hocker said it would be too difficult for students to find some place else to meet (outside of school hours starting at 4pm, no less).
A public comment by Nancy King blew holes in Hocker and Voeller's desire to spend money the district doesn't have and that could be used in areas of greater need.
Unfortunately for Nancy King and the taxpayers, the board approved the large sum of money to be used to expand the Midtown Meeting Center at the September 25 workshop.
Other items of note:
The Lake City High School football field has officially been named Van Troxel Field after the greatest coach LCHS ever had (IMHO).
The school district owns 40 acres near Huetter and Hayden Ave. The developers who bought the land around that acreage have come to the district and asked if they can give 0.4 acres to the City of Hayden to put a sewer lift station. Development within city limits has to have sewers and that cannot be done without a lift station, which will help bring streets and development to that area (and the need for another school). The district agrees and approved a Memorandum of Understanding for the district and the City of Hayden for that property.
Public comment was ON FIRE with multiple poignant comments, two from trustee candidates, but also about topics that were controversial and necessary for everyone to hear. I have put the comments in videos below (the Midtown Meeting Center comment excluded from here because it is above).