The Cheney School Board buckled down for a long night at their Dec.12 meeting, approving several policy revisions and tackling housekeeping measures to help ease the way into the new year.
The board held elections at the start of the meeting, unanimously selecting director and former vice president Stacy Nicol to serve as president, while director Mitch Swenson took the newly vacated vice president seat. Former school board president Henry Browne has served in that position for three years.
A new voting order for the upcoming year was also established.
With the organizational details out of the way, the board in its new positions heard a presentation on school choice from Assistant Superintendent Sean Dotson. Over the course of the 2018-2019 school year, about 337 students choiced out of the Cheney district, primarily to the Medical Lake and Liberty School Districts due to geographic limitations.
This is a significant drop from the previous year, when 398 students opted out of district. Also dropping was the number of students choicing into the district, down to 113 from 132 last year.
The district has been intentionally limiting the number of students allowed to choice in because it’s “bursting at the seams,” Dotson said.
Current policy dictates the district only choice in as many students as it can reliably see through graduation.
“When we commit to a student, we want to be able to commit to them long-term,” Dotson said.
The board unanimously approved three policy revisions in rapid succession – one increasing the financial threshold required for a competitive bidding process for furniture, equipment or supplies to $40,000, another changing the wording for staff safety rules and a third governing staff reimbursement for food and beverage consumption.
Also unanimously approved was the reallocation of about $70,000 in capital project funds from Betz Elementary to Sunset Elementary. Betz is set to be completed on schedule with a budget surplus, and the board gave the OK to transfer those funds to Sunset, which has repeatedly run into construction concerns and delays due to issues with the ground utilities and soil deficiencies.
According to school construction officials, the Betz budget contains plenty of money to do what was planned and a little more while still devoting extra funds to the Sunset project.
In other news, the board adopted the calendar for the 2019-2020 school year and learned of several grants that will be applied to the Cheney district at that time.
Due to the holiday, the board’s next meeting will take place on Jan. 9 at 6 p.m. at Cheney High School.
Shannen Talbot can be reached at shannen@cheneyfreepress.com.
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