Here’s the recap of our LIVE! at tonight’s Danville School Board meeting. We’ll have PhotoCentral articles coming up with some of the honorees.
Dolores Reynolds, HELLO!
We’re underway. Big crowd with all the retirees and other honorees. It looks like I’m the only media coverage here tonight, too.
I’m getting camera photos of the honorees so we’ll add a lot in the editing process. There’s not much regular business tonight because the school year is almost over. The May meeting is traditionally the awards one. Tonight it’s service awards, retirements and other things.
We start with the local winners in the Virginia School Board Association art contest. Next we have proclamations for School Nutrition Employee Week, Teacher Appreciation Week and National School Nurse Day. Anybody who fits in those categories is asked to stand and be recognized.
Nope, I’ve got company at the media table. That would be whenever I can get back to the media table. Here comes Trevor Metcalfe from the Register & Bee at 6:13 PM.
Now we move to the box full of service awards.
Tonight’s award ceremony is hosted by Hollywood’s Ed Polhamus and Terri Hall.
It’s “Get your award and get the hell out of there.” for most people. Except the art teachers. They stick around AND are sitting on the front row. I’m impressed.
The board wants to do a two-day planning session with Stan Jones after he officially takes over on July 1st.
Kathy Osborne says that temporary handicap access signs are now posted for the board meetings and they now have restrooms available for the public. Permanent signs are on the way. This all comes from me speaking about the lack of handicap access and restrooms a few months ago.
I spoke in the public comment session again about moving meetings to City Council chambers, and the dream is still alive. During the discussion of that, Ed Polhamus said he wondered if the meeting could be carried live on TV and tried to imply that he didn’t think that they could. Um. That’s false. The meetings in council chambers would be on a multi-camera setup and produced by Mark Aron or his staff. That’s easy to put on the live feed. I get up and move to the front row just to let them know I’m interested in this discussion. The board decides to get more answers and vote on this issue at a later meeting.
The board approves a policy statement continuing the early retirement program for enrollees as of the close of this business year. Board attorney member Steven Gould doesn’t like the word “guarantee” and that word is yanked out. ERIP is still active for people who retired this year and got their paperwork in on time. There’s still no official word on whether the program will be closed for next year’s retirees, but I get the feeling that it ain’t looking good.
The around the horn session is quite uneventful. Alan Spencer says nothing yet again. All of the board members congratulate the honorees. There’s lots of photos to come, but we’re done here.
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