An anticipated vote on a proposal requiring those attending a school event to stand for the national anthem never made it to the agenda for Monday’s meeting of the Lowndes County School District Board of Trustees.
As a result, the meeting, held Monday evening at West Lowndes Elementary School, lasted just 20 minutes as trustees quickly dispatched with routine business.
Wright said the board was not prepared to vote on a proposal.
“We are looking at different things at this point,” Wright said. “The board did see a rough draft of a policy, but there (are) different ideas about exactly what it should be. Right now, we’re trying to get as much information as possible to make the best decision. I don’t think we were ready to have that discussion at (Monday’s) board meeting.”
Wright had asked Board Attorney Jeff Smith to craft a policy after a conversation on Oct. 3. Smith prepared a resolution explaining the history and meaning of the national anthem and a proposal that would require students and attendees to stand for the national anthem.
That move was a response to an incident on Oct. 1 when seven Starkville High School players took a knee during the anthem prior to a volleyball game at New Hope High School.
Smith originally said the resolution and proposal would be presented to the board at its next meeting, originally scheduled for Friday, but pushed back until Monday.
“There is a good chance we’ll deal with this at a later meeting,” Wright said.
With the anticipated policy proposal off the agenda, Monday’s meeting moved quickly, dealing primarily with regular procedural board actions.
The board did get an update on the progress of two major projects, however.
Neil Waggoner of JBHM Architects said progress at both the career tech center and the new high school at New Hope is moving toward completion.
“We ran into an issue with the ceiling tiles at the career tech center,” Waggoner said. “It involved an issue with the delivery of the ceiling tiles, which will probably push the schedule back a couple of weeks. With that, we’re looking at the project being completed around mid-to-late December.”
Progress at the high school is on schedule, Waggoner said.
“So it looks like both projects will be completed at about the same time,” he said.
Both projects should be finished well in advance of plans to move students into the two new facilities at the beginning of the 2018-19 school year.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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