By JONAH LOSSIAH
One Feather Staff
The Cherokee Central Schools (CCS) Board of Education began their meeting on Monday, March 7 by addressing a donation request.
Aniyah Sampson, a second grader at Cherokee Elementary School, is traveling to Knoxville for cancer treatments. (Photo courtesy of Sampson family)
Sarah Crowe-Sampson, a teacher’s assistant at Cherokee Elementary School, had come to the meeting on behalf of one of her students. Aniyah Sampson, a second grader at CCS, is traveling to Knoxville for cancer treatments. Crowe-Sampson said that their class started a fundraiser to assist with the costs of commuting and to ease the stress of the situation for the family.
“We’ve asked for nickels, dimes, quarters, pennies, anything that we can get. My total before coming in here was 771 dollars and 66 cents that our kids raised. We’re asking if you guys could do a one-time donation to her and her family to try and alleviate some of that frustration and pain. We’d greatly appreciate it,” said Crowe-Sampson.
She said that they have been calculating the donations as a class for a mathematics lesson as well.
The Board voted unanimously to exercise their option to make a one-time 250-dollar donation. This is the maximum that the Board is allowed to provide to individuals.
The majority of the remainder of the meeting was spent discussing policy changes for CCS.
Policy 7100, Recruitment and Selection of Personnel, was brought back to the Board following comments provided by their attorney. The point of debate for this policy was highlighted by Tribal Council Rep. T.W. Saunooke.
Policy 7100 directs the school to follow the procedure in the Cherokee Code on matters concerning recruitment and selection. Rep. Saunooke said that he felt this was inefficient and could lead to issues down the line. He suggested to directly state the protocol in the policy itself. He said that this was because the code is amended by the Tribe, not the school. This could lead to inconsistency of understanding in the future.
The Board tabled the changes to Policy 7100 to work on these issues. Similarly, changes to Policy 7040, Hiring of Staff, were also tabled to resolve wording.
The next topic of discussion surrounding an updated job description for the facilities director. The sticking point was the pay structure for the job. Before amendment, there was a pay difference for the position depending on education level.
Rep. Saunooke and several board members did not support that an individual could be paid less for a job, regardless of experience. The solution was posed by Chairperson Jennifer Thompson, who said that the job description could be amended to remove the wording of ‘preferred qualifications’ and require a bachelor’s degree and/or eight-plus years of experience.
The Board made a motion for this amendment, and the new job description passed.
There was another edited job description, this one for special education support specialists. Human Resources Director Heather Driver said this was a requested change that would reduce the contracted length of the position from 12 months to 10 months. The Board passed the change unanimously.
During the meeting, the Board had questions about several items on the consent agenda. Four of the seven items were pulled to answer questions in closed session. The amended agenda with the remaining three were passed, putting forth the following:
- James Viar approved as a child nutrition assistant.
- Natasha Maney approved as a food service worker.
- Alisha Rhinehart approved as a food service worker.
The Board moved into a closed session for thirteen minutes to discuss the four pulled items. Immediately after the closed session, the Board voted and passed three of these resolutions.
- Riley Crowe approved as a volunteer chaperon for the London/Paris/Barcelona trip.
- Ellen Crowe approved as a volunteer chaperon for the London/Paris/Barcelona trip.
- Felicia Owle approved as a volunteer for the JROTC Summer Camp
Brandy Sequoyah was also in the consent agenda to be approved as a volunteer chaperon for the London/Paris/Barcelona trip. However, there was no motion to approve this resolution and the item died on the floor. This resolution was not discussed further.
The Monday, March 7 meeting of the CCS Board of Education was called to order at 4:45 p.m. with Chairperson Jennifer Thompson; Co-Vice Chairs Tara Reed-Cooper and Melanie Lambert; Secretary Kristina Hyatt; Board members Berdie Toineeta and Regina Ledford Rosario; Superintendent Michael Murray; Assistant Superintendent Beverley Payne; Tribal Council Alternate Rep. T.W. Saunooke; HR Director Heather Driver; and Administrative Assistant Terri Bradley all in attendance.
The next meeting of the CCS Board of Education is set for Thursday, March 24 at 4:45 p.m. and will be in the presence of their attorney. Meetings are currently being held in the Chief Joyce Dugan Cultural Arts Center located at Cherokee Middle School. These sessions are open to the public unless the Board formally moves into a closed session.
