White County Board Getting Legal Education

The White County Board of Education is attending a summer law conference hosted by the Tennessee School Boards Association this weekend.

Board Member and Tennessee School Board Association Vice President Jayson McDonald said the event allows the association to educate school boards across the state about any new laws related to education. McDonald said it is also an important opportunity for them to build relationships with other school boards.

“If you’ve having some kind of issue in White County, they may be having that same idea, or same thing in Humphreys County or Williamson County, whatever,” McDonald said. “So we can bounce ideas off of each other on what’s going on and you can get together with different school districts and compare of what’s happening in your district.”

McDonald said the main topics he expects to be discussed are handgun carry permits for school employees, third and fourth grade retention laws, and the funding that comes from state testing. He said school boards will have the chance to talk about all these subjects and ask any questions they may have.

“You’ll get, as you’ve seen in some of our meetings, lots of different opinions and different ideas, and they will be able to express those in those meetings,” McDonald said.

McDonald said the conference is only informational and should not have a broader impact on the operations of the school board.

“They’re just basically going to provide information that they are getting from the state department of education and from the legislators to pass on that the laws that are being signed in and what’s going to, you know, happen in the future,” McDonald said.

The board is having a work session during the conference Saturday to review their polices for the upcoming year, the structure for a new director’s evaluation model, and the details of the proposed culinary arts project.