News from Plymouth School Board Meeting

The Plymouth Community School Corporation held its school board meeting on Tuesday, February 7th in the administration board room of the corporate office. 

During Business Transactions the board approved an annual resolution to void checks written and not cashed that are 2 years or older.  The funds will be receipted back into the funds they were written from.

The school board approved revisions to the administrative conditions and benefits.  The changes approved were under the heading, Pay Raises.  The policy currently states, “Administrative raises are given once the administrator has been employed for a year.”  The approval was to add, “or at the discretion of the Superintendent.” The second change modified the language.  It stated, “Administrators receive a raise if they score a 3 or 4”, which 3 or 4 was deleted and replaced with “if they score effective or highly effective on their evaluation.”  

The next item the Plymouth School Board approved was revisions to the Classified Conditions of Employment and Classified Employee Guidelines that needed to have the language match when talking about vacation time and holidays. Some of the changes included adding New Year’s Eve, President’s Day, Good Friday to the list and changing Fall Break Day to the Friday of Fall Break, taking out one floating holiday.  The changes also modified less than 12-month employees and Bus Drivers who will receive holiday pay for New Year’s Day, President’s Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day.  The old policy only gave bus drivers Labor Day and Memorial Day holiday pay. 

As for Sick Leave the changes approved add, “If an employee misses 3 or more consecutive scheduled work days, a doctor’s release form will be required when returning to work.”  It also added, “Employees may not utilize sick leave until after the first 60 days of employment.”  The final change in sick leave discusses termination and adds “voluntarily or involuntarily” terminated employees and states that unused sick leave earned through the last day of employment will NOT be paid.  The same will hold true for personal business leave earned too.

There were also several revisions under benefits in the Classified Conditions of Employment.  This includes allowing classified staff to carry over 5 of their vacation days if they can’t use them. 

The Plymouth School Board also approved on 1st and 2nd readings of new and revised policies and guidelines.  One addition for Adjunct Teachers requires the Superintendent to discuss the need to post a vacant adjunct position before posting the position on the State Department of Education’s online adjunct teacher portal and at a school board meeting.  The second change requires the superintendent to discuss with the President of the PEA pertinent information on the proposed adjunct teacher considered for hire.

Under Supplemental Payment for Teachers, the school board added the ability to offer supplemental pay to new hires only for scarce availability of instructors or licensed in high-demand areas. It states that the PEA president will be informed before the school board’s action and that the pay may not exceed $5,000 and will be payable after the 185 contracted days.