Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Training requirements met by school board

Members of the Gurdon School Board should be up to date with required in-service training now that the Dawson Educational Cooperative has made training sessions available via lessons on compact discs.

Superintendent Bobby Smithson told board members about the availability of the lessons at the board meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 18.

Arkansas law requires all school board members in the state to receive in-service training on school law and the duties and responsibilities of school board members. All new board members must obtain no less than nine hours of training by Dec. 31 of the calendar year following the year in which they were elected. Other board members are required to obtain six hours of in-service each year.

Board members are often able to obtain most of their in-service hours through training sessions hosted by the Arkansas School Boards Association, but still some board members were left a few hours short.

The board asked Smithson to seek other methods of training during its November meeting as scheduling conflicts have kept some members from attending training seminars. Board members voiced their concern that the training had not been made available online earlier so that it could be done from home at any time. Although all board members still needing training hours have been able to go by the Dawson Cooperative to watch the CD videos to complete their training, some voice concern that they were not able to finish the work until a few weeks before the deadline.

School board members are not paid for their service.

Also during the meeting, the board approved a resolution naming the superintendent and district bookkeeper as the authorized agent to trade stock for the district. Smithson said the board receives stock as a donation from time to time and has to sell it to put its value to work. The resolution was approved at the recommendation of Stephens Inc., the districts financial advisors.

The district has recently received a stock donation for which the proceeds are to support the construction of the new Gurdon High School auditorium complex.

The board also approved several new personnel policies. The policies bring the district in compliance with new laws approved during the most recent legislative session.