Danville School Board – LIVE! (2/4/16)

SouthsideCentral was LIVE! at Thursday’s Danville School Board meeting. Although we had loads of technical difficulties, we’ve managed to put together a comprehensive recap article. Enjoy!

We’re underway! Everybody is present tonight at the roll call and the agenda is approved. Chairman Ed Polhamus leads the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. We start with the proclamations. Sharon Dones reads the proclamation for Black History Month. Terri Hall reads one for National School Counseling Week. Philip Campbell does the one for School Board Appreciation Month. Stan Jones does one for School Board Clerk Appreciation Week. Jackie Rochford reads Governor McAuliffe’s proclamation for February as Career & Technical Education Month.

Next, Employee Services Manager Coretta Lipscomb introduces Gateway Health Services representative Anne Moore-Sparks and they talk about the success of the recent health screening programs offered to school system employees. The maintenance department had the highest participation,  so they got a plaque and a banner to hang in their shop. Gateway Health offered lots of participation prizes, including YMCA memberships and a $500 & $1000 Visa gift card, so they had a good participation rate.

It was getting lonely at the media table, but R&B reporter Trevor Metcalfe arrives at 6:18 PM. Not that I ever sat down at the media table, because we get photos here at SouthsideCentral!

We heart Coretta Lipscomb.

Here’s one of our health screening participation prize winners.

Monica Crews, director of medical management programs at Gateway Health makes her presentation.

After that, we get a great presentation from Gibson Elementary School principal Kim Agnor about the greenhouse program and how her students love working with plants and are learning from that. They’re also selling their plants at the Farmer’s Market for school funds.

Gibson Elementary School principal Kim Agnor talks about the greenhouse program at the school.

Kim Agnor shows a presentation with photos of the greenhouse project.

Agnor also brings an assortment of plants raised by the Gibson students and offers each of the school board members one to take home.

Here’s the assortment of plants raised by the Gibson students.

Back in August, the school board agreed to a “Working Agreement” on how to do their job better. It was a list of um… well… common sense things like not calling each other names, not rushing to action, letting the school system’s processes work before they jump in. Ed Polhamus goes over the list and everybody agrees that they’re doing a good job at following the list. So that happened.

Ladies & Gentlemen, Juliet Jennings!

It’s personnel recommendations time, and there’s only three tonight. That means we won’t have a problem counting to three tonight. Heh.

Dave Cochran takes the podium for the final business item of the night.

We’ll wrap up tonight’s business with 3 Memorandums Of Understanding for the school system. They’re with Danville’s Emergency Management, Danville’s Police Department (for school resource officers), and the Red Cross (for emergency shelters at the Langston & Bonner gyms in case of community need). All three of these pass 7-0 with no debate. We finish things up with the around the horn section and everybody thanks the school system staff for pulling together during the snowstorm.

There’s a closed session scheduled but we’re done here. Let’s add some bonus photos and content before we wrap up the article…

Here’s a view of our audience tonight. Dolores Reynolds, HELLO!

School system employees also seem to huddle together on this side of the audience.

Melissa Newton, Juliet Jennings and Kathy Osborne, HELLO!

Superintendent Stan Jones hands out awards for School Board Clerk Appreciation Week.

And that’s it! Thanks for bearing with us until we got it all fixed. I hope that you enjoyed the most detailed recap of Thursday’s Danville School Board meeting… and it’s only here on SouthsideCentral!