Stanford Resigns from School Board
After an executive session at the end of the meeting the remaining members of the Council School Board announced the resignation of board member Shawn Stanford. Stanford covered Zone 3, East Council in the Council School District. The board now has 90 days to fill the vacancy and that person needs to live within the boundaries of Zone 3. Whoever is appointed will serve until the end of the current term which is December 31, 2025. An election will be held for this seat in the fall. The school has copies of the map or you can view it on the county website at www.co.adams.id.us/department/clerk-auditor-recorder/election-information. Zone 3 covers approximately the area east of Highway 95, south of Mill Creek road and north of Exeter lane.
The rest of the meeting was more routine. The only board member absent from the night’s proceedings was Julie Pate. Superintendent Pat Griffin and other administrative staff were present.
During the public comment period only Justin Hamaker gave comment. He mentioned that he appreciates the transparency at the district’s community meeting held recently. No other public comment was given.
In Mr. Griffin’s report he mentioned that he is meeting with two separate parent groups. The first being the Parent Advisory Committee consisting of him, Carissa Harley who is the Secretary at the Elementary School and four parents. This new committee came from the public meetings that were coordinated by Chloe Lucas. Some of the topics covered were communication and the need for more of it, the culture and climate of the schools and work on a Parent and Teacher engagement plan.
An additional parent team has been formed and this one is focused on safety, discipline and communication. Griffin, High School Principal Brian Joyce and School Counselor Joey James met with a group of parents to hear their concerns. Their recommendations seemed to focus on reducing the number of offenses needed before suspensions and other discipline starts to happen. These recommendations will be given to the board as they will be starting to review the discipline policy next month.
High School Brian Joyce reported that enrollment increased by one student recently. Attendance has been poor lately due to sickness. The High School textiles class recently sent 11 quilts to victims of the southern California wildfires and Joey James has been working on presenting anti-bullying lessons to junior high students.
The board then discussed what to do with the funds from student body accounts that had been dormant for at least three years. The board recently approved moving money from these dormant accounts and to ‘reclaim’ them essentially. This discussion was about what to do with it and how to fairly use it since students had raised it in the past. They proposed having students present to them what they would like to use the money on, a little like proposals for grant funding.
Several overnight trips were approved. These included the Spanish class trip to the Dominican Republic, an overnighter for the Biology students to Hells Canyon, a trip to Craters of the Moon and a trip to Salt Lake for Council’s National Honor Society students.
The policies on head lice (3523) and background checks (5110) were up for their second reading. These were approved with only minor updates overall. The 1000 series policies were reviewed at length with minor changes. These should be reviewed further in a future meeting. Following this the board held the first reading of Policy 7400, Miscellaneous Procurement Standards. This policy was approved with no changes.
The board went into executive session and afterwards approved the hiring of custodial staff, a bus driver and an aide. They also announced Shawn Stanford’s resignation from the board as mentioned above.
