Colby board mulls options for teachers without licenses
The Colby school board discussed procedure regarding teachers whose licensing has expired at their monthly meeting held this past Monday.
While no action has been taken yet by administration or the board, the issue of teachers in the classroom with expired teaching licenses came up during the December meeting. After speaking with the district’s attorney, superintendent Dr. Steven Kolden believed that their procedure for how to handle such situations needed to be updated.
“We have some individuals that do not have current teaching licenses,” he said, “This is the teachers’ responsibility. Where it really got screwed up is when we moved to lifetime licenses. The DPI does not require any paperwork to renew your license, but state statute says you still have to have a background check every five years.”
Kolden continued to explain that if teaching staff do not submit the background check every five years, their licences become invalid. He also stated that administration cannot do this process for staff and that it is something that they need to take care of themselves.
This is an issue that seems to arise on an annual basis, with two or three staff members having their licenses expire.
In order to try to avoid the situation, Kolden stated that he would like to set up a process to remind staff in the spring to see if they need to update their background check.
The question then became how to motivate staff to keep their licenses up to date, as Kolden stated that the state statute prohibits the payment of salary to those teaching without licenses.
“I visited with our school attorney,” Kolden said. “His major concern is that they should not be working at all [without a valid license].”
“If you don’t have a license, you shouldn’t be teaching,” he continued later. “If you don’t have a license and you’re not teaching, who do I throw in your classroom? And do I terminate you or do I try to find a sub until you get your stuff together?”
Kolden stated that what he has put together thus far on the process still needs to be worked on after speaking with the school’s attorney.
Other Business
The board also agreed to obtain a proposal from Dashir in regards to subcontracting their summer janitorial staff through the company. Potential benefits to the change would be that all janitorial staff would be paid equally, as even after a recent raise, those under Dashir would be compensated slightly more, as well as being able to pass some of the logistics over to the company instead of needing to handle it in house. Dashir currently subcontracts the regular janitorial staff.
