Box Elder school taxes to say the same

The Box Elder Public Schools Board of Trustees voted to adopt a budget for the coming year that will involve no increase in taxes to local residents, as well as adopting new standards for participation in school athletics.

Box Elder Public Schools Superintendent Jeremy MacDonald said this year's budget would see taxes go down slightly, but it would only be by pennies for most people, so it's a pretty negligible difference.

During the meeting the board also approved new changes to the student handbook which involved raising standards for student participation in school athletics.

Box Elder High School Principal Mollee Gemar said the current rules only evaluate a student's grades when determining eligibility in school athletics, and those standards are pretty low.

Under these proposed changes, Gemar said, attendance would be a factor in determining eligibility and any student with a failing grade would be barred from participation, when previously they were permitted one failing grade.

"Across the board we need to start expecting more from our kids," she said.

She said 33 percent of high school students are missing 20-44 days of school and 37 percent are missing between 45 and 89 days, which is nearly a full quarter of the school year, and a troubling number of their student athletes are among those numbers.

Board Chair Calvin Jilot said he rarely sees students miss games and if they can come to games consistently they should be expected to come to school.

Gemar said she has full confidence that student athletes will be able to reach these new standards, they just need to be pushed to attend school more consistently.

"They will hit the mark," she said.

One aspect of the new policies which caused some disagreement was over whether students facing in-school or out-of-school suspension or disciplinary action generally would be disqualified from too much practice time.

MacDonald said he was concerned that if a student gets disciplined for a behavioral issue on a Monday they would be disqualified from practice and games for the entire week, which he could see being a bit excessive depending on the circumstances.

Jilot said he agrees that students need to be held to higher standards but he shared this concern to some degree.

If, for example, he said, a student beats another up, then obviously that student should be disqualified from representing the school that week, and probably for more than just that week, but if a student has a rough weekend comes in on Monday and in a heated moment drops some profanity, that doesn't seem like something they should necessarily lose a week of practice and games over.

Gemar said there are policies already in place governing severe infractions, like acts of physical violence, and what the penalties are in terms of athletics participation, and these policies shouldn't prevent students from going to practice for fairly minor behavioral troubles, but she sees the concern.

She said the board could reword the policy slightly so that students facing suspension, in-school or out–of school, "may" be disqualified from practice and games that week instead of "will," which would allow the school's athletics director, coaches and teachers a bit more flexibility in handling these matters on more of a case-by-case basis.

The board took that suggestion and adopted the new policy with that change.

During the meeting the board and attendees also briefly discussed new housing units scheduled for construction in the area, their increasing efforts to implement culturally-responsive teaching and ongoing union negotiations.

A substantial amount of the meeting was also spent on debating whether or not to renew Payge Raining Bird as co-coach of the school's cheer team.

MacDonald initially recommended that the board not keep her in that position because she criticized the district on social media for not inviting her team to a dinner for student athletes.

The board offered to take the matter into executive session for the sake of privacy, but Raining Bird, who attended the meeting, said she was fine with keeping the meeting open to the public.

She said she doesn't believe what she did merits being removed from her position, which she called "retaliation," and that her criticism was neither excessive or unwarranted.

MacDonald said she should have brought the matter to her supervisor instead of criticizing the district on social media, which he said is unprofessional.

Board members mostly agreed with Raining Bird that her team should have been invited to the dinner, but some agreed with MacDonald that she shouldn't have taken the matter to social media.

After much conversation and debate MacDonald revised his recommendation saying that Raining Bird brings a lot more good to the school than bad, though he hopes she will adjust her behavior regarding social media.

The board voted 2-1 to reappoint Raining Bird, with board members Marquieta Jilot and Shane Sangrey voting for and Board Vice-Chair Neal Rosette Sr. voting against.