Oroville School Board gives nod to another Dominican Republic trip

OROVILLE – The Oroville School Board approved a second student exchange trip to the Dominican Republic at their Monday, Oct. 25 meeting.

Last year, Oroville students traveled to Jarabacoa in the Dominican Republic on a three-week exchange program involving forestry and will do the same again this year before Christmas. Like last year a similar number of Dominican students will come to Oroville in the spring for three weeks. The program is fully funded through a grant and does not cost the school district any money, according to student advisor George Thornton, whose work with similar projects involving educators and the U.S. State Department first brought the Oroville School District to the attention of those sponsoring the exchange.

The school board set the dates for the upcoming monthly meetings through the end of the 2010-2011 school year, all are on Mondays at 5 p.m., as follows: Nov. 29 and Dec. 20, 2010; Jan. 24, Feb. 22, March 28, April 25, May 23 and June 27, 2011.

After a quick discussion about whether to change the meeting time from 5 p.m. to a later hour, four out of five board members voted to leave it at 5 p.m., with Amy Wise saying she did not have a preference.

The board approved several changes to school policy regarding personnel issues. Many regarded leave – sick, family, military, jury duty and discretionary, as well as leave sharing.

“Under leave sharing our legal council advised us to add ‘or has been called to armed services, emergency service or a victim of domestic abuse,'” said Superintendent Steve Quick. “Emergency leave has been consolidated with sick leave and maternity leave. This follows state and federal guidelines.”

Supt. Quick added the full policy can be viewed at the district’s website which is http://oroville.wednet.edu.

Linda Colvin and Kristin Sarmiento were approved for National Board Certification Payments of $10,900 each for the 2010-2011 school year and Krystal Harris was approved as the Junior High National Honor Society advisor for the 2010-2011 school year. Shay Shaw, the district’s Financial Manager, said the money for the payments to Colvin and Sarmiento coming from funding sources outside the district and are at no additional cost to the district.

The next Oroville School Board meeting will be on Monday, Nov. 29 in the boardroom at the district office located at 816 Juniper St.