Vernon Parish School Board is considering adopting a handful of policies enacted by the state Legislature, including allowing teachers receiving disciplinary action a hearing and a more lenient sick leave policy.

The board will be tasked with creating a body of hearing officers that will arbitrate disciplinary hearings for all certified teachers in an effort to afford more due process, according to school board member Vernon Travis. It will also have to adopt procedures for how the hearing will be held.

The hearing officers will address all teachers who are threatened to be suspended without pay, to receive a reduction in pay, involuntary demotion or termination. The hearing process will not be applied to teachers whose misconduct is grounds for immediate termination such as juvenile sexual offenses, abuse, neglect and the like, Funderburk said.

Teachers were previously brought before the school board to decide the action taken against them, according to Personnel Director Jimmy Funderburk. The school board has not had such a hearing in four years, he said.

“That changes dramatically from what we’ve done in the past,” Funderburk said during the Thursday meeting. “Before that we held the disciplinary hearing before the board.”

School Board President Michael Perkins said he felt the measure did not go far enough to help the teacher because the hearing officer would have a conflict of interest.

“The board is the employer, is selecting the pool and we’re paying the pool so that the teacher will get a fair hearing?” he said. “That’s unconstitutional, I think. If the board is selecting the arbitration hearing officer and the board is paying the hearing officer, I think that’s unconstitutional. I think that’s a violation of (the teacher’s) rights.”

Hearing officers must be qualified mediators or arbitrators, attorneys or former judiciary. Vernon Parish School Board must choose five members, as dictated by the state policy for parishes with a population of less than 20,000. The policy would also require at a minimum an examination of witnesses, an introduction of evidence and the presence of court reporter during the disciplinary hearings.

Should the board fail to choose members, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will appoint the hearing officers for them.

School board member Doug Brandon asked if it would perhaps make more sense to allow the state to send someone because the hearings were so rare in the parish.

Travis said the school board’s legal counsel advised they choose locals to fill the position, and that they do so soon.

“We should act on establishing that pool as quick as possible,” Travis said during the meeting. “Because if something happened tomorrow we don’t have it. So we would literally have to go to the state and they would have to send somebody in here to do that.”

Superintendent James Williams said the parish legal counsel is currently reviewing the policy and will give the parish guidance with how to move forward.

“Right now without consulting and getting a clear directive from our legal team I’m not sure that we can come up with all the details that we need to,” Williams said.

Board members are expected to vote to authorize Williams and Funderburk to contact potential hearing officers during its 5 p.m. meeting today.

The board will also decide whether to approve a policy regarding promotions, which will require the superintendent to disclose all terms of an initial or subsequent administrative contract prior to coming before board for approval. Funderburk also addressed changes that will come before the board today regarding sick leave for teachers, including more allotted for women who are pregnant or have children less than one year of age.(MGNonline)