News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The White County Board of Education approved a policy amendment Thursday removing the requirement that the board to elect a chair pro tem.
Board Member Jayson McDonald said the chair pro tem would run meetings if the chair and vice chair are absent but the policy is unnecessary. McDonald said in that situation the board should turn to Robert’s Rules of Order, a guide for conducting meetings the board already uses.
“As I said in last month’s meeting, I’ve been here eleven years now,” McDonald said. “And we’ve never had an incident where the chair or the vice chair have not been present at either, you know, been out at the same time.”
Board Member Lisa Officer said the amendment should not have any impact on the board but it is important to make sure all policies are as clear as possible. Officer said the change was brought up because the policy worded itself as a concrete requirement despite being redundant.
“We’ve spent two meetings discussing something that may or may not occur where it’s already covered under a different policy,” Officer said. “And this hasn’t been reviewed since 2017 so it’s time to do that.”
Officer said she looked into districts across the state and found that some kept that section of the policy and others removed it. Officer said tidying up policies like this allows the board to make sure all the policies are being followed properly.
“Now there are other things that we’re going to run into that (say) we ‘shall’ do this,” Officer said. “But this is already covered in an additional policy. That’s why it’s easy to remove this one, because it’s already covered in Robert’s Rules of Order.”
McDonald said that not only has a chair pro tem never been necessary, but one has never even been elected in his time on the board. McDonald said he spoke with the Tennessee School Boards Association to confirm the board can remove that part of the policy.
The board will consider the second reading of this policy amendment at its February meeting.
In other business, the board approved two policy changes from the TSBA regarding student promotion and retention and giving school administration the option of whether or not to reimburse applicants for the cost of their background check.
