Crane Governing Board Meeting at a Glance

The Crane School District governing board convened Tuesday evening, Feb. 14 for its regular meeting which can be accessed at https://vimeo. com/798012087.

CALL TO THE PUBLIC

Bruce Luna handed out papers to the governing board and then spoke on a matter of curriculum he alleged some parents had seen their child opening up on an ipad.

“Once I’d seen it, it was very disgusting,” he said. “You have a copy of the package in front of you. I want to remind every single one of us we are mandatory reporters from the janitor to the superintendents to the governing board members. This stuff comes across your curriculum, you have a responsibility of reporting it directly and make sure you cover your butt, make sure you get an email from them saying that yeah, you can teach this before you teach it because it is really disgusting.”

Although Luna referred to the material as child endangerment, he did not elaborate publicly on what the material was about. He did, however, laud the governing board for their previous failure to re-approve programs from the Yuma County Public Health Services District that became classified as sex education due to lessons on the topic of abstinence.

“I’m going to tell you, Crane School District has impressed me so much,” he said. “You’re the first one to say no to Yuma County Health Department, no sex education. That in turn found the foundation for Somerton and Gadsden. Yuma District One didn’t listen but soon around they came around. Yuma Union, they squashed it. I give that to y’all because without you saying what you said, none of us, the rest of the school district would even know it existed. So I have faith in Crane, I really do.”

Community member Lena Comer also spoke during the call to volunteer her prayer.

“I believe that God could be a great help to all of us and especially to our children so I am here,” she said. “I would like to volunteer to say a short prayer before the board meeting begins or to ask if it would be permissible at times to use my three-minute call to the public to say a prayer.”

Since Arizona open meeting law doesn’t permit the board to reply directly or take legal action on matters not included in the agenda, the board wasn’t able to answer Comer. However, they did indicate that they would set up a meeting later to answer her request.

DONATIONS

Crane received a total of $14,118 this past month. The most sizable donations went to Gowan Science Academy, which received a total of $11,718 from various Donorschoose donations, and Gary A. Knox Elementary, which received $2,000 from Frances and Bruce Gibson.

CONSENT AND ACTION ITEMS

The governing board unanimously voted to approve the consent agenda, which consists of items of a routine nature that do not typically require deliberation.

The board also held a first reading for a policy advisory regarding the admission of students in foster care. The policy and regulation were updated to conform with the law and are meant to reflect that educating foster care students is a collaboration between schools, child welfare agencies and the Arizona Department of Education.

“I love this as a foster parent,” said board member Sarah Claridge. “The changes that they made were very appropriate and very helpful.

Finally, the board voted to release two staff members from contract without assessing damages and voted to assess liquidated damages from one certified staff member.