Nothing will get a community heated up faster than problems within their school district. Parents are the first to reach the boiling point; they take out their frustrations on school board members, administration and personnel; and finally, even taxpayers that don’t have kids in school get bent out of shape because the bottom line is: their taxes are impacted by decisions made about how schools are going to operate and function.
The turmoil has been going on in North Clay Schools in Louisville since before the school year started, as regular readers will recall. Things heated up further when a school board member and some school personnel resigned. The school board caught hell because they took action on something that they’d promised the community that they (the community) would be involved in the decision over. That may or may not have been a violation of the Open Meetings Act, which could have caused considerably more grief for everyone involved.
But in the end, a decision was made that resolved the issue for most involved…and caused apparent grief and consternation only for the school board, who basically had to defecate backwards in order to calm the public down (although it did little for their spouses; see screenshot of the board president Mike Worthey’s felon wife, Nikki Worthey, having a high-speed comeapart over the whole thing on her Facebook page.) And further, the final casualty was the departure of a very well-thought-of school principal, as you’ll see here in the next Read the Lead, “Parents win; but principal resigns“:
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LOUISVILLE—A major upheaval occurred in North Clay County after an ill-advised change to school athletic policy was established in the midst of a school year.
Not only were a number of students facing ineligibility to participate in sports, but North Clay High School has now lost its principal to a Wayne County school district, and an effort is underway to see what can be done with errant school board members who appear to have altered policy so their own kids wouldn’t land in trouble.
How it started
The matter began in August when a group of high school kids were intent on having beer at a bonfire, and were reported to have gotten hold of some of the alcohol.
A large majority of those involved were student athletes, both male and female.
After a thorough investigation, it was determined who the kids were that were involved, and since the school policy at the time was that there was zero tolerance for drug and alcohol as it regarded athletes, it was presumed that those athletes involved would be removed from sports participation for the rest of the school year under the current policy.
However, through much wrangling and several school board meetings, the board—many of whom had young relatives involved who were going to miss out on participation and thus, potential scholarships upon graduation—altered the policy to adjust the punishment for children who were found to be in possession of drugs or alcohol, changing the “zero tolerance” to a complicated “first/subsequent infraction” policy.
New policy
This new policy involved suspension only from one-third of the scheduled games for a “first infraction,” among other sundry specifics such as being at all practices, being in attendance at the scheduled events but not in uniform, paying penalties, etc…but gave the impression, in the opinion of many, that possession of drugs or alcohol was now allowed in North Clay Schools as long as it’s only once.
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