{"id":11789,"date":"2019-07-26T16:58:23","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T16:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=11789"},"modified":"2019-07-26T16:58:23","modified_gmt":"2019-07-26T16:58:23","slug":"bcsd-seeking-new-grievance-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/26\/bcsd-seeking-new-grievance-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"BCSD Seeking New Grievance Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trustees try to balance free speech, due process rights<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Trustee Kelly Green, right, addresses the audience before the public comment segment of the July 16 school board meeting. Photo credit: Blaine County School District<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Concerned stakeholders aired their grievances with the Blaine County School District\u2019s grievance-airing policy\u2014and information-sharing practices\u2014at the July 16 regular school board meeting. And trustees say they want to do what they can to curb the increasing community sentiment that beleaguered officials within the organization care more about sweeping conflicts under the rug than handling controversial matters with transparency.<\/p>\n

At issue is how\u2014and whether\u2014to change the district\u2019s so-called Grievance Policy for Non-Certificated Employees. Specifically, whether it should include grievances against the superintendent and, in general, whether the six-day limit for filing grievances against non-teachers should be extended or reduced. Additionally, trustees addressed a concern by Board Chair Ellen Mandeville that a district policy not permitting criticism of district personnel to happen at public meetings has been violated in recent months.<\/p>\n

A series of recent school board meetings were attended by members of I-Care (Idaho Citizens for Accountable, Responsible Education)\u2014a vocal collection of parents, teachers and residents who are calling on the school board to terminate Superintendent GwenCarol Holmes for, among other reasons, what they describe as her inability to appropriately manage district conflicts and avoid expensive litigation. Public statements critiquing Holmes were cheered, disrupting\u2014some trustees say\u2014district business and going against the spirit of the monthly meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will gavel comments that attack any employee of our school district regardless of who they are,\u201d trustee and meeting chair Kelly Green told the public. \u201cThat is not appropriate and it violates our policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June, the district paid out $125,000 to now-former BCSD Human Resources Director Shannon Maza who was suing the district for what she alleged was bullying and slander against her. During Holmes\u2019 four-year tenure, the district has spent a quarter million dollars on legal expenses across a number of firms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re putting a band-aid on a big wound,\u201d Trustee Rob Clayton said regarding the proposed policy changes. \u201cWhat it looks like to me is we\u2019re revamping a policy and adding to it when it\u2019s already been problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clayton advocated for taking a step back, determining what the goal of the district is when it comes to empowering employees to resolve work issues, and develop a new policy from there. Ultimately, trustees voted to send a new version of its so -alled Grievance Policy for Non-Certificated Employees back to the district\u2019s policy committee for further revision. Among several other tweaks, the most glaring change is that the proposed policy specifically includes the superintendent position.<\/p>\n

\u201cA grievance policy is basically you\u2019re saying \u2018I\u2019m going to court, but in the school district court system because my contract has been violated,\u2019 or whatever,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how you make a grievance uplifting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou make it uplifting by making it a right,\u201d Clayton retorted. \u201cThis is not about a lawsuit or a court, this is about people taking care of people. If you have an employee, you want them to be empowered and have an avenue to do their best job possible. If they don\u2019t have an avenue, they\u2019re not going to be able to do the best job possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trustees try to balance free speech, due process rights By Eric Valentine Concerned stakeholders aired their grievances with the Blaine County School District\u2019s grievance-airing policy\u2014and information-sharing practices\u2014at the July 16 regular school board meeting. And trustees say they want to do what they can to curb the increasing community sentiment that beleaguered officials within the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}