By DAVID CAMPHOUSE
At its Wednesday, Oct. 20, meeting, Griggsville-Perry’s school board approved two memoranda of understanding (MOU) with the Griggsville-Perry Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel, Local #4141.
The first MOU with the district’s union employees effectively continues the district’s existing new teacher mentor program.
According to G-P Super-intendent Kent Hawley, the mentorship program is designed to ensure all teachers new to G-P get off to a good start in the district.
“Any time we have a new teacher come to the district we provide a mentor that guides them about how G-P does business,” Hawley said.
Hawley said the mentorship program was particularly important for teachers, who are new to the profession.
“If it’s a brand new teacher, the program is making sure they are doing what they need to be doing to be a successful teacher,” Hawley said. “Teaching is hard enough. We try to provide as much support as we can. We want them to have a good, solid start to their teaching careers.”
Hawley indicated that G-P’s teacher mentor program has been in place for the last three years.
The board went on to approve a second MOU with the union regarding the district’s evaluation process for tenured teachers, which had previously required teachers to be evaluated every other year.
According to Hawley, the MOU aligns district policy with new state legislation that relaxes evaluation procedures for tenured teachers who had previously been graded as “proficient” or “excellent” on past evaluations.
“This summer the Governor signed into law a provision about how teachers can be evaluated,” Hawley said. “The old law said tenured teachers need to be evaluated every two years. The new law is that tenured teachers, who are proficient or excellent, are to be evaluated every three years.”
Hawley added that the district can evaluate teachers more that every three years if it chooses.
“It still gives the district the ability to evaluate more frequently if we want to, but we don’t have to,” Hawley said.
Following closed session, the school board approved two personnel decisions.
The board approved hiring Brooklynn Brown as a Paraprofessional.
In addition, board members approved naming elementary physical education teacher Matt Hansen as the middle school track coach.
