Schools

Hazelwood School District's Feb. 15 Meeting Was Jam-Packed

The school district expresses concern regarding open enrollment legislation and the board hears first reading of updates to 23 of the district's policies.

It was a full house at Tuesday's Hazelwood School District (HSD) Board of Education meeting, which was filled with action.

HSD Superintendent Dr. Steve Price started the meeting with a presentation regarding open enrollment. The Missouri Legislature is currently set to review the topic and would allow parents to pick the public school their children attend.

The open enrollment legislation would allow parents to transfer their children to neighboring school districts without paying tuition. Schools losing students would pay districts receiving their students. Missouri's proposal would require schools to set ideal class sizes and wouldn't force schools to accept new students if they have no room.

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Dr. Price informed the crowd that the has an advocacy group, HSD Legislative Advocacy Committee, active in working with the legislatures in Jefferson City regarding issues pertinent to the district. These include two very hot button issues of open enrollment and school funding.

"It's meeting to weigh in on exactly these kinds of issues that are facing the legislation right now," Price said. "Our committee will be taking a position on this ... we encourage our community to get involved and write your opinion to the legislators."

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Assistant Superintendent for Communications Diana Gulotta said that although the committee is not a lobbyist organization, it will help HSD create a legislative platform.

Among the meeting's topics were the first reading of 23 of the district's revised policies including:

  • workers' compensation
  • suspension of professional staff members
  • students' discipline
  • seclusion, isolation and restraint
  • student insurance
  • student allergy prevention response

"We do ongoing policy review," Price said as he introduced the policy. "This is policy that comes before us (each year), and we had our legal council look over them..."

All of the proposed policy revisions are available to view at the HSD during normal business hours.

Hazelwood Southeast Middle School, along with Jury, Keeven and Larimore elementary schools, presented their student-performance monitoring reports. All Hazelwood Schools just recently wrapped up Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP) reviews.

Reports for the district will follow the review and a recommendations' process will be presented to the Missouri State Board of Education for its approval. The third, fourth and fifth-grade students are also preparing for the state MAP test, which will begin the week of March 28.

During the patron-participation time of the meeting, George Hawkes, who is not a district parent but has children who attend Francis Howell North, spoke about claims of what he described as athlete mistreatment by some of North's baseball coaches, one of which he said also coaches a sport in the Hazelwood School District. He asked the board to consider the students and take action against coaching abuse towards student athletes. Hawkes spoke at North's Nov. 18, 2010 meeting during its patron-participation time. The meeting minutes do not describe the contents of Hawkes' comments.

The next Hazelwood School District Board of Education meeting is set for March 1.


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