BOARD

The Mena School Board held their regular meeting for February on Monday at the district administration building.

The meeting began with the Superintendent’s Report. Dr. Lee Smith told board members that attendance has improved since Governor Hutchinson relaxed the close contact protocols for Arkansas Public Schools. He also noted that there are very few positive cases in the district at this time.

In new business the board approved a handful of board policy updates. Including a new policy for code of conduct identifying two behaviors as prohibited. Those include insubordination and also adjust wording as well as clarification of sexual harassment. The school choice publication date has been moved to January 1st and paperwork may be submitted between January 1st and May 1st. There was an adjustment in the Smart Core Policy removing the 2022 graduating class from the list. Plus, the Information Technology Security Policy has been clarified to include language stating that cyber security breaches must be reported to Legislative Audit.

The board then approved the renewal of the district’s Workers Compensation Insurance. There was a $1,139.00 increase in the premium over last year.

There was a brief discussion on a change of date for the March meeting. It was decided that it would remain on the third Tuesday, March 15th, as it was scheduled.

The latest Financial Report was approved with no discussion.

Finally, there were quite a few changes in personnel including resignations, a restructuring, contract renewals and two new hires. The board accepted three resignations. Including Sammy Varner Jr. from his bus driving position, Sheryl Barfield as parapro at LDE and Christie Chandler as parapro at MHS. They approved the restructuring of the contract for Kristen Manasco to reflect her change to parapro for RTI at LDE replacing Sheryl Barfield and all administrator contracts were renewed. The two new hires were Andrea Blair as special education teacher at MHS and Curtis Black as principal at LDE.