Weakley County Schools Change Language in Zero Tolerance Policy

The Weakley County School board met Thursday, September 3 and voted unanimously to change the language in their zero-tolerance policy.

The policy, which was issued in October 2023 currently reads, “Assaulting or threatening to assault a teacher, student, or other school employee, including transmitting by electronic device any communication threatening to cause bodily injury or death to another student, a teacher, or other school employee, and the transmission creates actual disruptive activity at the school that requires administrative intervention.”

The new policy will remove “student” and “and the transmission creates actual disruptive activity at the school that requires administrative intervention.” Director of Weakley County Schools Jeff Cupples stated that the reasoning behind the language changed was to “take a common-sense approach.”

“What we're requesting is to remove students out of that language there, because essentially as it reads, you know, zero tolerance offense, assault and threatening is a zero-tolerance offense. Well, that puts us in a problem. We're in a bad position in order to go by this policy for what can be sometimes minor issues. But if you take it literally, it can change a kid's life,” Cupples further stated.

“So what we're asking to do is just take students out. Of course, all this stays in compliance with state law, it's just preventing us from being pigeonholed around, if one kid tells another kid, I'm going to kick your butt, and you're out of school for 180 days. So we're just asking a little bit more common-sense approach,” Cupples said.

The school board also passed the second reading of adding solid-colored t-shirts to the dress code policy. This passed on second reading, but Cupples had already moved the policy to start right after the first reading last month.

The board passed a promotion and retention policy changed that changed from 5 subjects to 4 that students need a passing grade in to be promoted to the next grade. The reasoning behind the change is due to the two subjects in question (reading and language arts) being combined into 1 subject.

Cupples spoke on the Westview HVAC situation and stated that it was now slated for late November with units being staged during fall break and cranes being brought during Christmas break. No times have been set as of yet for interior work.

Cupples also stated that they might need to add a bus route for Martin to stay in compliance with the state regulation of 90 students per bus. This amount is based off of elementary school sized students and doesn’t consider older, and bigger, kids, according to Cupples. The amount would be 21,000 to cover salary and benefits for the position.

The Color Shop won the bid for the press box in Gleason which was $124,960. Work on that should be started soon.

Dresden Middle School will be holding a Field of Flags Day set for Sunday November 3 at 2 p.m. at Dresden Middle School to honor veterans and service members. This event will honor the brave men and women heroes who have served our country. The event will include a ceremony (with a rain date of November 10th). Individuals and families are invited to purchase a memorial flag in honor of a veteran or veterans. Each flag will be tagged with the Veteran’s name and the flag sponsor’s name and displayed on the school’s lawn. The deadline for purchase is October 9. The flags cost $20. Call Dresden Middle School for more information at 731-364-2407.

Volunteer Coaches Hired: Emma Barner-Martin Middle School Softball and Elijah Lambert-Westview Baseball.

The next board meeting will be held on Thursday, November 14artin Middle School at 5 p.m.