ELKO – Elko County school trustees have approved policies for release time and class rankings after these policies were tweaked following first reading, and they also voted to change their meeting days beginning July 1.
The release time policy that allows high school students to skip an elective class to attend a religious education class off campus, a job internship, community service or off-campus dual credit courses passed unanimously on March 14, with a few edits to the draft.
The approved policy includes accountability of time release attendance and releasing the Elko County School District from financial liability, along with removing a one-fourth-mile distance requirement to simply say within the ECSD attendance zone.
Superintendent Clayton Anderson reiterated that students who take advantage of release time sacrifice an elective, but the district builds in extra credits so there is leeway, and he stressed that school principals have final say on whether a student can use release time.
People are also reading…
“Authority is vested with the principal,” he said, adding that release time should be “better voiced as a privilege not a right.”
The LDS church in Spring Creek had pushed for the policy for students to attend religious instruction, and Quinn Westmoreland, speaking for the church, said in public comment on March 14 that the church would welcome students of any denomination.
He also said that “we will make the building available to anyone who wants to hold instruction.”
The approved policy states that “the meeting space for religious instruction be located within the attendance zone of the student’s assigned high school campus, or such other location as approved by the student’s principal.”
The release-time policy for religious education is for any high school student but only juniors and seniors can qualify for release time for employment, community service, internship or volunteer opportunities.
In addition, the policy says that “parents/guardians assume all responsibility for student safety, transportation, and liability when off campus during release time.”
The ECSD administration and trustees have been cleaning up, updating and proposing new policies throughout the past months and recently adopted a policy that calls for a first reading without a vote to allow trustee discussion and time for public comment.
Class ranking
The policy on class ranking was unanimously approved as edited, but school trustees informally agreed that students at the top or near the top of their graduating class should be honored. The district has done away with valedictorian and salutatorian designations in recent years and states in the new policy that it no longer provides those titles.
In public comment, Lee Hoffman said “academic champions” should be recognized, pointing to the honors athletes receive, and Lynne Hoffman said she would love to see the top three or four students invited to a board meeting to be honored publicly.
Trustee Matt McCarty said he would vote for the policy as edited but he said Lynne Hoffman had a good point. He said recognition “doesn’t need to be built into the policy,” because the board has the ability to recognize students.
Anderson said graduating students wear stoles and medals in the ceremony and scholarships are announced, so it is not accurate to say there is no recognition of their accomplishments.
The recognition is with “other words and other adornments,” he said.
The guest student trustee, Esteban Perez, said academic achievers are recognized during assemblies in the fall, winter and spring.
The class ranking policy also covers grade point averages and computations, withdrawal from a course, dual credit courses, and an explanation on math courses.
“High school math courses taken in 7th and 8th grade will be posted on a student’s high school transcript and included in the high school GPA and class ranking calculation,” the policy states, but it allows for students to request those courses be excluded from their high school transcript.
Such a request must be made prior to the end of a student’s junior year and is irreversible, according to the new policy.
Board meetings
The board voted to change meetings from the second and fourth Tuesdays to the first and third Tuesdays of each month, so they don’t conflict with other governmental meetings.
The example cited in earlier discussion is that Elko City Council meetings are held on the second and fourth Tuesdays.
The regular meeting days will change in July but the 5:30 p.m. meeting time will remain the same, according to the new policy. The policy also continues the tradition of only one board meeting in July and December of each year.
The school board also held first reading of a new policy on student conduct on school buses, which Anderson said is “just putting into writing” what the district is already doing. He agreed with wording Trustee Brooke Ballard proposed to say that a principal will determine the most appropriate action for the most serious offense, if there are multiple offenses.
Trustees also held a first reading on a revised policy of the district’s grading system that was originally adopted in 2019, and states that grade levels 3-12 are required to use letter grades.
The earlier grades must use standard-based grading, such as a 4 means exceeds standard level, a 3 meets standard, 2, approaches standard and a 1 means emergent in standard.
