Teacher requirements changing

CLOVIS — Teachers for Clovis Municipal Schools will no longer need to obtain a master’s degree or face the prospect of losing their jobs following a decision at Tuesday’s board meeting.

The board voted to omit Board Policy G-3600, which required level II and level III teachers to obtain a master’s degree by the end of their fifth annual employment contract to qualify for continued renewal.

The district issued a press release on Friday stating that since 2008 the policy saw several revisions over the year, but was finally removed to help with the district’s staff recruitment and retention of teachers.

The release states that without this requirement the district will have an easier time recruiting qualified teachers and no longer need to worry about proven teachers becoming disqualified.

While the master’s requirement has been removed, the district stated it would still encourage teachers to pursue advancing their education and reward them with higher earning potentials.

Deputy Superintendent of Employee Services Joe Strickland introduced several other policy revisions to the board for future consideration.

Notable policy changes discussed include:

• Changing the district’s staff conduct requirements so the standards set for licensed teachers no longer apply to all staff.

• Expanding policies for pregnant or parenting female students, while also altering language to include male parenting students.

• Changing the district’s school volunteer policy to make short-term visitors entering the school for one-day activities exempt from extensive background checks and instead use a stream-lined check-in system.

• Expanding reasons students will be allowed make-up work, noting reasons such as bereavement, tribal duties and religious instruction.

The board also reviewed a new regulation that would change the frequency of evaluations for teachers, with two per year for level I teachers and at least one per year for level II and III teachers.

The change would only mandate two reviews a year for level I teachers for their first two years since the district employs many level one teachers and reviewing them all twice a year would create too much of a workload for principals.

Other highlights from Tuesday’s meeting include:

• The Finance Department submitted its 2018-2019 Final Report checklist for the board to review.

• The Finance Department presented the results of the $3 million General Obligations Bond, Series 2019. The bonds received three bids with the lowest at a true interest cost of 2.38 percent.

Deputy Superintendent of Finance Shawna Russell said this was a good percentage at 75 basis points lower than last year, but still above the preferred rate of 2 percent. The bond is scheduled to close on Oct. 2.

• The board approved the sale of two pigs and four goats from the district inventory.

Russell said she is working with the state auditor’s office to streamline their tagging process. Currently, the district is required to tag all animals born in the district’s breeding program, regardless of whether or not they survive, which creates a lot of unneeded work.

• The board approved the use of sealed bids or to go through STS Recycling to sell worn out electronics from the district.