Jackson-Madison County School leaders discuss future policies

JACKSON, Tenn.– In Monday’s Student Advisory Committee meeting, Jackson-Madison County School Board members asked students for their opinion on cell phone usage in schools.

“What do we do when students don’t comply, as it pertains to earbuds, use of cell phones, when they can and cannot use it, and if they don’t comply, what do we do with them,” Jackson-Madison County Schools Superintendent Ray Washington said. “So, that’s really the crux of why we involved the students in, because it impacts them.”

In the Jackson-Madison County School Board work session meeting, members discussed better ways to work with school resource officers in schools.

“Bus behavior and discipline, which I think is absolutely needed,” school board chairman Pete Johnson said.

Also, board members listened to concerns of the public, one parent addressing questions of her child being out of school.

“What we’re going to do, in making sure those chronic absenteeisms are reduced, because that actually reflects on our high school graduation rate,” Johnson said.

In an upcoming meeting, members will also come up with a criteria for a new superintendent. If they don’t come up with one, they will have a special-called meeting to further discuss it.

“Policies on our superintendent operation, guidelines, and how we hire them, those are some of the things that we discussed policy wise. During our next meeting on the 12, TSBA representatives will be here to give us all their data that was collected during the five meetings we had,” Johnson said.

Johnson said future plans for the school will be discussed in Tuesday’s Vision Committee Meeting, which will be held at the school system’s central office at 5:30 p.m.