The Warren County Board of Education approved a new working snow day policy for 12-month employees during its Thursday meeting.
Director of Schools Dr. Grant Swallows said the policy aims to streamline the work calendar for administrators and central office staff by establishing a set schedule of 231 work days. Swallows said the change provides these employees with 12 annual leave days they did not previously have, which can be used to take time off during inclement weather.
“What I want to caution you on is just basically if you want to keep it the way it is, that’s fine,” Swallows said. “The whole design of this is to try to give those twelve-month employees a a calendar of days that they have to work, but it’s also providing them leave days that they can take, more than ample leave days to be able to cover the days.”
The policy passed with a 4-2 vote following a lengthy debate regarding the safety and expectations of staff during winter weather. Board member James Bennett said he received more community feedback on this issue than any other topic during his tenure, specifically regarding the requirement for principals to report to buildings when schools are closed for students.
“If they have to go in and work on snow days, I can’t vote for it,” Bennett said. “I’m just being straight up. I just feel like there’s too much liability, and Lord forbid if one of them got hurt, I just don’t I just don’t think that’s right.”
The board clarified that if the Director of Schools shuts down the entire district office and maintenance operations due to extreme conditions, no employees are forced to use leave. However, on standard snow days where support staff and maintenance crews still report to work, 12-month certified employees will now be expected to either report for duty or use one of their newly allocated annual days.
The policy also addresses the transition of 240-day contracts to a 12-month designation. Swallows said that while the naming convention is changing to simplify the calendar, employee compensation will remain at current contract levels to ensure no staff members see a reduction in pay.
“I’ve been a former principal, those are things that just that happen that way,” Swallows said. “And so, again, the reason I feel comfortable recommending it is that I feel like we’re giving them leave that they’ve never had prior to this, and so we’re giving them something to compensate for some of those things as opposed to what they’ve had to do in the past was try to get 240 days.”
In other business, the board approved a letter to the McMinnville Mayor and Board of Aldermen regarding a temporary moratorium on data centers. Board Chairman Chris Cope said the letter expresses appreciation for the city’s research into the impact of such facilities, specifically noting concerns about the proximity of a proposed data center to Warren County Middle School.
“As a governing body responsible for providing a safe and effective learning environment for our students and employees, we believe it was important that the potential impacts of large-scale industrial development located near one of our schools be carefully evaluated before long-term decisions were made,” Cope said.
The board also approved several policy updates to align with state law, including new regulations for private Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy providers in schools and a policy prohibiting employees from entering relationships with students for at least 12 months after the student leaves the district.