Cloverdale school board is quick to address issues

CLOVERDALE--The meeting of the Cloverdale School Board on Monday moved like a well oiled machine, finishing in just over half an hour.

Cloverdale High School president Brent Sailor gave two presentations, one on the PEDAL program and one on the PutnamRISE competition.

PEDAL stands for Promoting Excellence through Discipline and Attendance enhanced Learning. It's a program that offers high school students recognition for having no absences, no discipline referrals and under two tardies.

"We're trying to acknowledge some of the good things that kids do instead of always seeing, from my viewpoint, the not so nice things," Sailor said.

PutnamRISE is a sustainability project that Cloverdale is coordinating with other schools on. It's a way for the corporation to save money across the board, according to Sailor.

"Everything from turning lights off in classrooms when we're not using them, maybe using half the light that is provided to getting the public involved in ways that they can save money in their homes," Sailor said. "There's a lot of different things we can do."

The four county schools are competing to see which school wins $5,000.

Nikki Selig with the Light the Field committee gave a presentation to the board regarding their beginning efforts to purchase lights for the Cloverdale baseball field.

"I don't believe in complaining unless you can do something about it, so I volunteered my time and effort to take on this project," Selig said.

"We intend to raise the funds in several different ways, from fundraisers and sale items to corporate sponsors and events."

Selig said she had put in an application for the Putnam County Foundation Grant. She said the committee was targeting $85,000 as the amount needed to complete the project. She said the committee wouldn't start the project until the necessary funds to finish it were in place.

Cloverdale superintendent Carrie Milner gave an update on the endowments the schools have with the Putnam County Community Foundation. The resource center endowment has $30,981, the community scholarship fund has $104,746 and the corporation endowment has $35,836

The students of the month for February are Shane Witt at the elementary school, Ryan Heavener at the middle school and Lisha Hunsicker for the high school.

The board was given a new board policy update to review. The new policies cover a wide variety of areas, such as nondiscrimination policies, weapon policies, eligibility policies and public attendance at school events, as well as other areas. The board didn't have to vote on the reviews, as this was just an introductory phase.

The board approved the resignation of Rob Schroer as coordinator of transportation and grounds and the hiring of Debbie Long as a part-time high school student assistant. The board approved 23 professional leave requests for different conferences, workshops and other professional development opportunities. Board member Bobbi Nees voted against the leave requests.