ROANOKE RAPIDS — Much needed school repairs took the spotlight at the Roanoke Rapids Board of Education meeting Tuesday night as members and staff debated how to best apply for lottery money from the county. Additionally, the board also took the first steps toward its first policy review in more than 10 years.

Roger Bell | The Daily Herald Roanoke Rapids Graded Schools District Superintendent Dennis Sawyer would be chiefly responsible for implementing any policy updates the board chooses to implement. Advertisement

Superintendent Dennis Sawyer informed the board of the district's plan to seek lottery money for repairs to roofing at Chaloner Middle School and Manning Elementary School in addition to repairs to Manning's fire alarm system. This money must be authorized by the Halifax County Board of Commissioners, which means the district has to fill out an application for the draw down of funds to present to the commissioners.

The issue before the board then was the amount, since the repair costs exceed the $610,000 in lottery money currently available for capital improvements. Board Chairman Vernon Bryant urged the board to come up with a number below $600,000, since anything more would probably get rejected by the commissioners. Board member Mike Salanik decried the necessity of continuing to "put bandaids on our schools," with repairs such as these when he believes larger action is needed.

Board member Dr. Shiva Rao suggested the figure not exceed $595,000, saying such a number would "feel more like five and less like six" in the presentation, likening such a number to sales where an item is, for example offered at $4.99 instead of $5. After Board member Jane Deese told Dr. Rao he'd learned a lot about being an American in a short time, the board elected to submit the application for lottery funds for repairs to the County Commissioners at a figure not exceeding $595,000.

Janine Murphy and Kim Brooks, of the North Carolina School Boards Association (NCSBA), appeared before the board to begin the process of policy review for the district. The NCSBA is an organization representing 115 boards of education in North Carolina and provides what their web site calls "a sophisticated level of advocacy and policy analysis."

The district is contracting with the NCSBA to update the board manual, which currently has 320 policies in it, according to Murphy. The NCSBA will do this by comparing the Roanoke Rapids Graded Schools District policies with their baseline manual to determine any legal irregularities in addition to bringing the district's policies current. The process would, according to Murphy, expand the current manual from seven sections to nine but would probably not have any major changes in the new version.

Brooks, in charge of doing the policy review, said the completed process would then make it "easier to update your manual" in the future. Brooks told the board the new manual will be more flexible because it will allow the board to either accept base policies from the NCSBA or use current local policies. Murphy added the trend these days in policies focuses more on specifics rather than broadness. The last time the board updated its policy manual the reverse was true, according to member Mike Salanik.

Brooks expects the process to take anywhere between 18 months to two years. She also told the board any updates they made to their policies during the review period could be easily folded into the new manual.

Additional business before the board at the meeting included a financial report in which Barbara White said she expected the school's funding "to stay in the black for the next several months." The board approved Dottie Wardsworth's personnel report, which included information on the retirement of Phillis T. Britt as Belmont's cafeteria manager effective Nov. 10 and the hiring of Kathleen A. Hermann as exceptional children's teacher at Manning Elementary School.

At next month’s meeting the board will be hearing from Allen Purser, President of the Roanoke Valley Chamber of Commerce. Purser will be presenting details of the Kalamazoo Promise, a program designed to allow public school graduates to attend college with scholarship money. The Chamber is seeking to convert the Michigan program into a local opportunity for students in the district.

As Bryant adjourned the meeting, a long night which included the first program updates of Dennis Sawyer's tenure as superintendent concluded.

The district now waits with a number of anxious parents to see if they can win approval from the County Commissioners for their much-needed school repairs.