Showing support for Veterans School district policy committee looks at mentorship pay

The Medford Board of Education Policy Committee met on Wednesday, September 6. The main reason for policy committee meetings is to review and revise district policies.

Besides policy readings, the committee also discussed increasing mentor pay. The school district has a mentor program for new teachers to the district. The district would like the board to consider changing the pay for mentors from $820 in the first year of mentoring a new teacher to $1,000. This mentor program has been in place since around 2007 according to the district’s curriculum director, Laura Lundy.

When a teacher is new to the Medford School District, they are paired with a mentor. For a brand new teacher, that is just graduated from college, this program will continue for two or three years. For teachers that are new to the district, but have experience at other districts, the program lasts for one or two years.

The new teacher and mentor meet at least once a month. The mentor does have to observe the teacher during the school year. The mentors also go through an afternoon of training in the summer. Lundy told the committee that, “This is an important program for our teachers.” She also mentioned that , “there are 33 mentors currently in the district.”

The committee was in agreement with increasing the pay for mentors. However, because this includes a monetary change, they would like to bring the change to the board during their next board meeting.

The first policy review was the second reading of the buildings and grounds inspection policy. The only change that was made to this policy was the term “principal” being changed to “building administrator.”

The committee held the second reading of the policy on accident reports. There were no changes to this policy.

The pool operation policy was next on the list for review. This was the second reading on the policy. The term “pool supervisor,” was changed to “aquatic director.” This change was done to better reflect the job title of, “Aquatic and Fitness Center Director.”

The student/staff death policy was read for a second time. The committee found that there was a policy on a student death or homicide in the Staff Safety Response Guide. After review, the committee decided that they would like to review the Staff Safety Response Guide to ensure that the policies are not contradicting one another. Committee Chair Jodi Nuernberger also pointed out that the Staff Safety Response Guide is reviewed and revised each year during the summer and it may be better to use that policy. Regardless the committee decided that during their next meeting, they will compare the two policies side by side.

The committee also had a second reading of the memorials policy. The committee decided that they did not want to make any changes to that policy.

There was a motion to approve the changes made. This motion was carried.

The committee then shifted gears to the policy on access to buildings. This was the first reading of this policy. One of the topics of discussion was key and key fobs in the building. District Administrator Pat Sullivan said that although all outside doors have “fobs” to get in the building, all inside doors still use keys. Although the key tracking system may not be perfect, there have not been any issues either. Sullivan also pointed out that cameras can catch someone that is doing something wrong.

The policy on vandalism was the next policy that the committee read. There were a couple of grammatical changes made to the policy. There was discussion held on if the building administrator should be able to delegate giving authority to a different employee to sign a criminal complaint or press charges. Currently the policy gives the building administrator the ability to delegate authority to sign a criminal complaint and to press charges. The committee decided to leave the wording the same. The big reason for giving the building administrator the ability to delegate these tasks was in case there was a conflict of interest with the building administrator.

The last policy that was read as part of the committee meeting was the policy on unmanned aerial vehicles on school property. This was the first reading of this policy. The policy was first adopted in 2015. This is the first time the policy has been reviewed since then. Committee members Aemus Balsis and Corey Dassow both shared that unmanned aerial vehicles statutes have changed since 2015. The committee is going to be look at statutes to see how the policy may have to change. They will revisit this topic during their next committee meeting.