The Marion County School District will not make up days missed due to inclement weather on Jan. 17 and Jan. 18.
School Board Member Larry Jenkins asked during the Feb. 15 meeting if by missing the days the District would be within the 180-day window required by the state.
“Yes,” Superintendent Wendy Bracey responded. “The governor declared it a state of emergency, and our policy is written properly in that even if he didn’t, the superintendent could recommend that they be made up or not made up. We are currently at 177 days because we did not make up a day in December and with these two, it would be 177. I’ve been in close contact with our surrounding districts. This seems to be what everybody is doing.”
The Board then voted unanimously not to make up the days.
In other action, the Board:
• Approved the hiring of Heather Turnage as a teacher’s assistant at West Marion Primary.
• Approved a 16th Section Land lease cancellation for 95 acres leased by Jerry Thornhill.
• Approved lease amendments for leases held by Tammy Willoughby and Lydia Echols.
• Approved reclassifying several 16th Section Land plots.
• Approved 21 fundraisers.
• Discussed dates to tour all of the school facilities and will finalize later.
• Approved the East Marion varsity and junior varsity softball schedules and the 2018 archery schedules for East and West Marion.
• Approved recommendations of the disciplinary committee for four individual student cases after discussing in executive session.
• Approved advertising for bank depository effective July 1 for a three-year period.
• Approved advertising the sale of surplus cafeteria equipment.
• Approved a single-source purchase from Rosetta Stone Foundations – K-12 software that accelerates English learning. The cost will be $155 per license for a total of $3,629, which will be paid through federal funds.
• Approved a donation of $5,000 to West Marion Primary School from the West Marion Primary PTO to buy Chromebooks.
