Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Parents Complain About Staff In Closed Session At Nevada

Nevada's School Board meeting opened with a two-and-a-half hour executive session Thursday, April 20.

This was because of parents complaining about the Nevada High School baseball coach and the program overall.

Because the issue concerned personnel, the executive session was required. When the session finally ended, no action was taken by the board and the regular meeting commenced.

The panel was informed graduation ceremonies for the Class of 2000 will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 18, in the NHS gymnasium.

The board was also told the district's school uniform committee would meet before the May meeting, which was moved to May 25 as the normal meeting date coincided with graduation. A report will be made to the board on the committee's findings.

Nevada Superintendent Rick McAfee said the group's recommendation will then be put to a vote of the people at the September School Elections. This way, he said, it will be a community decision.

All certified personnel had their contracts extended another year, and the classified employees were rehired for the 2000-01 school year.

Board member Don Callicott presented a policy to institute a merit/demerit system for the board's consideration.

He said most complaints he gets are about discipline, with rumors going around there is no discipline in the school.

Because if this, Callicott said, he wants to institute a merit/demerit system along the lines of a military academy. The system, he told the board, includes a review process and penalties, but would also allow the principals to look at offenses across the board.

The review group, he said, would include members of the student council for the first two years to insure fairness. But, he added, the board would have to establish the guidelines for demerits based on particular offenses.

Under Callicott's plan, if a student received 50 demerits in a year they wouldn't be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities. But, he added, students would also be able to work demerits off.

Students would lose a letter grade in conduct for accumulating 25 demerits, as these grades would be tied into the demerit system also.

"We need to get back to training young people the value of respect, self control and self discipline," he said.

Bus drivers, he added, would also be trained in the demerit system and could give them to students who misbehave on the buses.

"It would cover all aspects of school life," Callicott told the board. "The board would do an annual review of how it's implemented. I don't want to turn this into a military school, but we need to improve discipline in the school system and be consistent in our punishment."

The matter was tabled until the district's Personnel Policy Committee can examine it in detail and make a recommendation to the board.

The board also approved a school calendar for the 2000-2001 school year, detailing when classes would be held and what holidays would be observed.

There will be a total of 178 school days for the students, while teachers will have 185 days for their school year because of in-service days.