ZEPHYR COVE, Nev. – The Tuesday, October 8 meeting of the Douglas County School District (DCSD) Board of Trustees will be held at Whittell High School, starting at 4 p.m.
On the agenda:
Sean Ryan will give a presentation on Zephyr Cove Elementary School and George Whittell High School, where he is the Principal.
There will be a discussion, and a possible vote, about the need for a secondary egress/access road for Whittell High School in case of an emergency. A Safety Assessment was done by DCSD, and it indicates there is a need for the road for situations requiring evacuation of the site. DCSD, Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District, and Douglas County Staff have come up with a plan to begin the process of developing this access road.
There will be discussion and a possible vote on a first reading of a new bylaw that defines a board member’s access to legal counsel. It states “Problems identified by Board Members go directly to the Board President and Superintendent, or when applicable, legal counsel. If any Board Member would like to request a legal opinion, they may address the request to the Superintendent. The Superintendent will be responsible for communicating the issue to legal counsel clearly and ensuring that all relevant information is provided. Formal legal opinions are for the benefit of the Board as a
whole and are not meant to act as legal opinions for the needs of individual Trustees.” There have been many situations in the past year when individual members called the district’s legal counsel, helping to create big legal bills.
The board will hear a presentation on enrollment which is currently down 127 students from last year at this time. Both Whittell High School and Zephyr Cove Elementary are going against that trend and are up ten students and five students respectively. Douglas High School is down 80 students since September 2023. Chronic absenteeism in the district will also be discussed, and even though the district as a whole is below federal averages, both Whittel and Zephyr Cove schools are above that average.
The full agenda and meeting participation instructions can be found HERE.