Cleveland Heights-University Heights Board of Education meeting highlights June 21

SPECIAL MEETING—JUNE 21, 2010

The special meeting’s topic was a continuation of policy review. 

• Personnel items
• Credit flexibility
• Eligibility for interscholastic athletics
• Career tech, school-to-work and credit flexibility
• Eligibility for extracurriculars

All board members were present.

Personnel items

The board approved Superintendent Heuer’s presentation of personnel for retirement, resignation, appointments (including summer school staff), status changes, “extended time”, leaves of absence, and name changes. The superintendent asked for board action at this special meeting because state law has specific deadlines and the district preferred to move the process as quickly as possible as a courtesy to other school districts to which employees are transferring. The remainder of the meeting dealt with policy review

Credit flexibility

The new state initiative under HB 1 for the 2010-2011 school year gives high school students the opportunity to earn alternative credit toward graduation. The board was chiefly concerned about maintaining the integrity of the district’s educational program, especially in regard to student who transfer between districts. The district will have to act in consortium with other districts from which it receives students to ensure that the granting of flexible credit is consistent. Currently, the policy developed by NEOLA (an organization that provides school districts with services to assist in updating board bylaws, policies, etc.) was recommended to ensure consistency between districts.

Superintendent Heuer pointed out that HB1 is vague in defining flexible credit waivers. If a district is not prepared to define what it will grant as a credit waiver, the local board can request a one-year waiver from the state to allow adequate time to determine if a waiver can be granted for a specific activity such as travel abroad.

Eligibility for interscholastic athletics

Kristin Hughes, director of athletics, addressing the board’s concerns about helping students meet eligibility guidelines, stated that review sessions, study halls before practice, and programs with John Carroll and Cleveland State universities to provide tutoring are being implemented. Infinite Campus, the district’s electronic student information and official grade book has been used to conduct eligibility checks at the end of each quarter. The policy concerning the grade average a student must maintain, as well as the number of failing grades a student can have, was clarified. The policy is more stringent than that of the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

Career tech and school-to-work

No specific policy language for educational options was recommended at this time because once the credit flexibility program is developed, it will supersede policies for such programs as career tech and school-to-work.

Eligibility for extracurriculars

The board concurred with the district’s educational services department that no eligibility standard was needed for district sponsored clubs and activities. The board said such a standard would not be congruent with the district’s mission to be inclusive, encourage participation and provide opportunities for all students. However, they suggested language such as “monitoring” could be used since some type of accountability mechanism would be needed if participating students’ grades suffered.

LWV observer: Cassandra Talerico.

These meeting summaries are abstracted from LWV observers’ written reports. The summaries have been edited and prepared by Anne McFarland, Charlene Morse, Marilyn McLaughlin and Maryann Barnes. To receive e-mail postings of full reports, send an e-mail to mbarnes9515@gmail.com or join through Google groups using “lwv-chuh observer reports” as a search phrase.

These reports contain member observation and selected highlights of public meetings and are not official statements of the Heights Chapter of the League of Women Voters Cuyahoga Area. This disclaimer must accompany any redistribution of these reports.