District One Board Meeting at a Glance
The governing board representing Yuma Elementary School District One convened for its monthly meeting on Tuesday, March 12. Here’s what you need to know.
County Spelling Bee winners
Toward the beginning of the meeting, Superintendent Jamie Sheldahl took to the floor and acknowledged the District One students who competed in the 2024 Yuma County Spelling Bee.
After congratulating all the participants, the County Spelling Bee champion and runner-up – Natalie Pinkerton of Dorothy Hall Elementary and Catherine Mccoy of Castle Dome Middle School, respectively – received certificates, along with gift cards to Coldstone Creamery, Harkins Theatre, and Barnes & Noble.
High Five employees
Luciano Munoz, District One’s executive director of human resources, then addressed the board and highlighted the High Five employees for the month of February.
The honor celebrated Amalia Lomeli, an administrative assistant at the district office; Luz Robles, a routing technician for the district’s transportation department; Carolina Contreras, a student support specialist at Pecan Grove Elementary; Linda Bergman, a teacher at James B. Rolle Elementary; and Tiffany Comstock, a para-librarian at Palmcroft Elementary.
During the call to the public, Jeff Stoner – a regular fixture at recent meetings – took the floor.
After starting out by congratulating the district’s compensation committee on its presentation last month, Stoner then homed in on paraprofessionals and encouraged the governing board to “make sure they’re medically qualified” to properly assist the district’s “most vulnerable” students.
“I would like to recommend that, when you do hire these paraprofessionals, please check them out and make sure they’re medically qualified to handle the most vulnerable in our kids – those with special needs and the handicapped. Right now, I feel like they’re not being adequately taken care of, and I’m hearing that from the parents that have these children,” he said, emphasizing that it’s especially important to ensure that paraprofessionals know how to care for students with feeding tubes.
Touching on his commentary from last month, Stoner proceeded to re-encourage the governing board to consider using their $23M 2023-2024 surplus to give each classroom $1,000 for materials.
Consideration to provide outlines on discussion topics
Finally, the evening wound down with the governing board discussing the idea of establishing a new process for posting meeting agendas.
Board member Keith Ware brought the issue up and advocated for the board to adopt the practice of sharing a “draft outline a week in advance” in an effort to give the public “an opportunity to see what we’re going to discuss, and if they choose to come out, then they can come out and put together an argument or support.”
Currently, full agendas are posted to the public at least 24 hours before the meeting, and Ware emphasized, “The policy and open meeting laws set the minimum. So, we’re not changing the policy. We’re just accepting a practice that we’re going to post it a week in advance.”
He also called it a “procedure” rather than a “policy” before noting that – while he wants a draft outline to be shared a week in advance – the full agendas will still be shared 24 hours ahead of the meeting.
President Faith Klostreich and board member Theresa Fox raised the concern that, if changes have to be made after an outline is published a week in advance, members of the public could interpret this as the board members not being transparent. Board member Anthony Gier further added, “I’m concerned that things can happen within that week timeframe.”
When asked if he’s aware of any other district that’s adopted this practice, Ware responded, “I don’t, but I can look.”
Rather than voting, the governing board ultimately agreed to “look a little deeper” into the matter and shelve it for the future.