BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. – Sullivan County school officials hope adding one more day to the school week will help relieve problems caused by an overcrowded detention classroom at Sullivan East High School.
The county Board of Education voted unanimously Monday night to let the high school’s administrators schedule detention, or in-school suspension, time on Saturdays.
The move will allow East High students to swap a full day of normal detention for a four-hour Saturday session starting Jan. 10. It’s designed to reduce overcrowding that school administrators say is hampering their efforts at discipline.
“At certain times, [the detention room at East] can get really crowded,” Lib Sells, the school system’s supervisor for student services, said in a phone interview before the board’s vote.
Sells said tardiness is the most common violation that lands students in detention. They also can be assigned detention for violating the dress code or breaking other rules in the student handbook.
The punishment needs to be doled out in a “very structured” environment, she said, because students need to reflect on what they’ve done wrong while doing their school work in an area where they are separated from their peers.
Overcrowding also has forced school administrators to extend the amount of time between the day when a student commits an offense and the day they start the punishment.
Sells said participation on Saturdays will be voluntary and students can choose to replace as many as three normal days of detention with up to three Saturday sessions.
Normal detention rules would still apply to Saturdays, including the dress code and class assignments. If a student doesn’t show up for Saturday detention, he or she could get a day’s worth of out-of-school suspension.
In other action, board members reviewed the payment schedule on a $15.4 million bond issue the county took out to add 23 classrooms to Ketron Intermediate School, which is north of Kingsport in the Bloomingdale community.
While nothing is final until the bonds are sold, Barnes said the debt would carry an annual interest rate of 1.515 percent. The school system would have to make an initial payment of $96,415 in March 2010. Barnes said five monthly payments of $19,544 would be due from April to August. These payments would only cover interest.
After those payments were made, Barnes said, the school system would have a monthly payment of about $100,000 starting in September. These payments would stop at the end of the debt’s 17-year term.
Barnes said the school system could make the first four payments by using money set aside in general fund reserves.
In October, board members discussed closing Akard Elementary School in Bristol, Tenn., at the start of the next school year and sending its students to
Blountville Elementary School as a way to save about $250,000 each year. That money would then be used to pay for the bonds.
Barnes said the school system could save another $750,000 per year by closing Cedar Grove and Kingsley elementary schools, both also in Bloomingdale, and sending their students to the new Ketron school once its expansion has been completed.
gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518
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