South Pike County School District discusses changes to student handbook

On Monday, July 15th, the South Pike County School Board had their monthly meeting. During this meeting, an executive session was requested by a parent regarding a discipline hearing to discuss the child’s enrollment. The student, transferring from the Nashville School District, was to be expelled for the first nine weeks of the school year in the prior district. However, the South Pike County school board made the decision to place the student in ALE for the first nine weeks while also receiving counseling from one of the three counseling agencies present on campus. At the end of the first nine weeks, the parents and school district will meet and discuss the next steps for the student.

The school board discussed changes to the student handbook. In regard to Honor’s credits, the district made a change to the wording of the requirements for being considered an honor graduate. This wording was changed from “A student must have at least 10 semesters” to “A student must have 5 credit hours”. This change was followed by the addition of the concurrent courses of Psychology and Sociology as honors classes.

For schedule changes, a student now has 7 days to request a schedule change rather than the previous 10 days.

The policies for absentees and tardies were also changed. If a student receives 10 absences per semester, the district will report these to the state for further handling. Tardies will now be counted at 7:55am instead of the previous 8:05am. Five tardies will now equal one unexcused absence. The South Pike County school board moved a total of $649,000 from the operational funds into the building funds. The school board accepted the resignation of Sarah Deal, a special education paraprofessional. The board approved the hiring of Hanah Smith, joining the district as an elementary teacher. Due to contractional conflicts, the offer to Krista Milner was rescinded.