Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Emmet-Blevins annexation official

It's official, the annexation between the Emmet and Blevins school districts has been approved by the State Board of Education.

This was done at the Board's meeting Monday, April 19. While the State Board took little time to render its decision, getting to that point was anything but smooth.

Emmet Superintendent Dr. Gene Ross said he was proud the Board approved the annexation and is looking forward to a good working relationship with Blevins.

Ross said he was glad to have the commitment from the Blevins board Emmet could keep its school. "We have a good school at Emmet and are meeting standards. We'll be able to keep pre-K through 12 at Emmet."

The next step is for the two districts to work on policies and the salary schedule. This must be done by July 1, when the annexation goes into effect and Blevins takes over the day-to-day operation of both districts.

Donnie Davis, Blevins superintendent, said he's trying to get a joint meeting of the two school boards together for May 6 and have a representative from Rainey and Beardsley, a financial firm, make a presentation on the financial structure of the annexed group.

Meanwhile, he said, the Blevins Personnel Police Committee will be meeting on April 27 and 29 to work on policies and salary schedules. Davis said Emmet has been contacted about having its PPC do the same thing. Hopefully, he said, the two PPCs will get together and work on these issues so both schools will be going in the same direction.

Technically, as of July 1, the Emmet School District will no longer exist, as Emmet was annexed into the Blevins District. Davis said no one from Emmet has approached the Blevins District about changing its name. Emmet's mascot will remain the Eagles, while Blevins stays the Hornets, and the two schools will continue to compete against one another in conference play in sports.

Ross said the Emmet students have been told there will be no major changes for them, as the annexation was administrative only. This means all administrative duties and bookkeeping will be handled by Blevins, and not at Emmet.

Still, there is a lot of work to be done before the annexation can be considered completed. The two school boards will be working together on the zoning issue for what will be the new school board in 2005.

Davis said he has been in touch with Tim Humphries, who handles this sort of thing for the Secretary of State's Office, and sent him maps. The initial idea, according to Davis, was to have seven zones. Currently, Blevins has five zones and two at-large positions. Emmet has five zones for its school board.

Once the zoning issue has been settled, and this must be done by July 2005 so candidates can file in August for the September 2005 school election, a new board will be seated with representatives from both areas.

Blevins, Davis said, is also looking at developing curriculum and staff development. The biggest problem is staff development, he said, with the 190 day school year. Davis wants the extra days to be a benefit to the teachers in their development, not just five more days on their contract. The problem, though, is most workshops for staff development require advance planning, and with the days added so late, few are available.

Davis said he wants to utilize the strengths of both schools for staff development and to get the Benchmark scores up. Additionally, he continued, Emmet offers 57.5 credits on an alternating schedule, while Blevins offers 45 credits. While both schools have solid curriculum, he said, the alternating schedule will have to be addressed.

The administrative annexation means Ross will no longer be superintendent at Emmet. However, he has been offered the option of remaining and helping with the transition for a year, if he so desires. Davis said the option is Ross's and nothing has been decided, even though Ross has a year on his contract.

"I've been asked to say on a year to help with the transition," Ross said, "but I haven't decided what I'll do."