The Camanche School District’s Board of Education held their regular monthly meeting on Monday, December 17th. Please note that these are not the official minutes. The official Agendas and Minutes from the Camanche Community School District school board are available and posted on our school district website (camanche.k12.ia.us).
Items to highlight from this school board meeting would include:
- The Board heard a report regarding conversations taking place with the Clinton School District to explore the possibility of establishing an Alternative School for At-Risk students.
- The Board conducted the 2nd Reading of, and took action to adopt school board policies regarding public participation during school board meetings. These policies were recommended to school districts throughout Iowa by the Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB). The Camanche School Board’s goal is to protect a person’s right to free speech at a public meeting, while at the same time protecting the rights of the other people. The school board conducted a work session that was open to the public on September 18th to work on developing policies, procedures, and effective practices for boards and board members to follow when responding to questions and concerns from the public. At the work session, representatives from the IASB presented information and made suggestions on how to best proceed. These policies will now be implemented in the District.
- The Board voted to not extend the Early Retirement Incentive for eligible employees for an additional year.
- The Board took action to fill the vacant seat on the Board by naming Albert McManus as the new member of the school board. He will serve in this position until the upcoming school election in November, 2019. The Board appreciates Albert’s willingness to serve our school community.
- The Board approved applying to the state to receive additional funding to be used to support funding Camanche School District programs that address the needs of at-risk students and for dropout prevention. Examples of these programs would include the district’s Family Resource Center, a teacher to support at-risk students, credit recovery classes, and summer school support programing. Over the past several years, Camanche has seen a trend of increasing graduation rates and a lower number of students dropping out.
As is usually the case, the school board completed the meeting by approving administrative recommendations regarding personnel and also approving open enrollment requests into the Camanche School District.