Personal Day Policy Change Spurs Questions; District Wants Consistency
Last updated Monday, November 20, 2006 9:36 PM CST in News
By Lana F. Flowers
The Morning News
BENTONVILLE -- A sister is getting married out of state on a school day, and a teacher wants to take off work to attend.
A spouse has business in Aspen, Colo., beginning the Friday before spring break, and a teacher wants the day off to accompany the spouse.
A teacher's toilet is overflowing and flooding his house, and he can't teach classes that day because he has to wait on plumbers and a restoration service.
Do those count as personal days or vacation days?
That's what Bentonville teachers want to know, according to Ronnie Flowers, a representative of the nonunion Bentonville Teachers Association.
Flowers spoke to the Bentonville School Board on Monday night before the board unanimously passed, on its first reading, some proposed changes to the personal leave policy.
The board and its personnel and policy committees have discussed changing personal day to personal business day or giving some other name to a day that does not fall into the categories of vacation or sick leave.
Teachers want the personal day to remain just that -- personal, and a day to be taken without having to tell building supervisors why the teacher wants the day off, Flowers said.
"If misuse of the personal day occurs, then we expect the person misusing them to be dealt with according to board policies," Flowers read from a written statement. "It is our hope that the district does not punish over 1,000 employees because of the unprofessionalism of a few."
Bentonville teachers get two days each year to use as personal days. The days revert to sick leave, if not used during the year. The personal days are not required by state law.
Board member Beth Haney and Superintendent Gary Compton said the personal days are meant for teachers to attend to business that cannot be handled outside normal school hours.
Board member Marshall Ney said it is impossible to define all reasons for being off work and to determine that that should be a personal day.
However, the district must apply use of personal days consistently, Compton said.
"We need to sit down with all the building principals to have a common understanding of what is permissible," he said.
Board member Travis Riggs said he believes in the intent of changing the personal day policy, but fears it will force teachers to lie and say they are sick or doing business when they are using the personal day as vacation.
"It is nothing more than forcing the hands of administrators to do what they should have done all along, and maybe gives the administrators some ability to enforce it," Riggs said, of ensuring how teachers use personal days.
Compton said the policy still needs work. Committees will discuss the policy revisions next month.
In other business, the school board unanimously approved rolling back the district's millage from 40.8 mills to 40.3 mills to comply with Amendment 59 to the Arkansas Constitution.
A mill is one-tenth of a cent, and each mill produces $1 of tax for each $1,000 of assessed valuation on property. A property's assessed value is 20 percent of its appraised value.
Amendment 59 limits increases in tax revenue, allowing up to a 10 percent increase each year. When a taxing entity's revenue collection would increase more than 10 percent because of property reappraisals, Amendment 59 triggers a millage rollback.
AT A GLANCE
Bentonville School Board
The Bentonville School Board on Monday:* Approved the school calendar for the 2007-08 school year. School begins Aug. 20 for traditional calendars and ends May 27. If weather means using snow days, school would end June 3.
Superintendent Gary Compton said the biggest change in the calendar is having school on Friday in the third week of October, when art and craft fairs, especially Ole Applegate Place along Arkansas 72 west in Bentonville, choke thoroughfares with traffic. That has made it difficult for buses to run routes, Compton said, but now Ole Applegate place owner Vernon Patton is moving his fair out of Bentonville.
* Approved hiring Moore Stephens Frost, with an office in Rogers, as auditor for years ended June 30, 2006, June 30, 2007, and June 30, 2008. The district has used the Division of Legislative Audit in the past, with auditors at Bentonville school offices for 10-12 weeks. The legislative auditors did not charge a fee but may have cost school staff time that could have been spent on other duties, school officials said.
Moore Stephens Frost can perform the audits in seven to 10 days. The district will pay the firm $23,500 for the 2006 audit, $24,500 for the 2007 audit and $25,500 for 2008.
* Heard a presentation on the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, which allows students to get college credit before setting foot on a college campus and earning scholarship money.
Jeff Hagers, a Bentonville High School Spanish teacher working to help implement the baccalaureate program, said 25 rising juniors and 59 rising sophomores are interested in the program.
Source: Staff Report
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It should be a choice... wrote on Nov 21, 2006 9:00 AM:
Contemplating wrote on Nov 21, 2006 10:26 AM:
Thankful wrote on Nov 22, 2006 9:03 AM:
IB Graduate wrote on Nov 27, 2006 8:54 AM:
Not already registered?
conrfused wrote on Nov 20, 2006 10:55 PM: