The Elizabethton City School board approved the certificate of substantial completion for the new Citizens Bank Stadium project Tuesday night and learned the project came in under projected costs.
The Board heard from Pat Breeding, vice president of operations at GRC Construction, who told the group the project cost $188,000 less than planned.
Breeding recognized the completion of the stadium as an icon of teamwork and community effort, and said the savings was a result of collaboration between school system staff, architect Tom Weems and his company.
The reduced cost included $86,000 saved on taxes and $102,000 saved on construction.
“There’s a sense of pride that our community has for the stadium,” said Board Chairman Rita Booher. “It’s so much fun to see everyone walk in there. It’s such a beautiful, beautiful place.”
The Board also granted eight teachers tenure — the first group to receive tenure under the new state standards passed in 2011.
The teachers include Kristen Cannon, Amber Ebarb, Kristen Grindstaff, Tammy Markland, Sara Snavely, Marsha Taylor, Carla Whiles and Emilee Whitehead.
“This is important to me because it shows that I am doing my job and that I love my job,” said Ebarb, a 4th grade teacher at East Side Elementary.
The 2011 policy change requires teachers to have five years experience to qualify, as well as meeting new evaluation criteria. During the last two years of their five-year probationary period, teachers must demonstrate accountability by receiving ratings “above expectations” or “significantly above expectations” in three categories.
Fifty percent of the score comes from evaluation, 35 percent comes from value-added scores and 15 percent comes from an assessment score of the teacher’s choosing. The final approval is made by the school board.
“Every person that’s on the list definitely deserves to be here,” said Director of Schools Dr. Corey Gardenhour. “They’re not only good teachers — they’re good people.”
2011 tenure policy changes includes the ability to lose tenure status if overall performance effectiveness drops to “below expectations” or “significantly below expectations” for two consecutive years. But teachers may regain tenure with demonstrated improvement to appropriate performance levels for two consecutive years.
In other action, the Board also approved an internship program with Milligan College, allowing its prospective professional educators enrolled in post-baccalaureate programs the opportunity to work as interns for one-year terms with the city school system.
“Anytime that we get to work with higher education on something that could make our school system more successful, and anytime that we can have students that are of high quality — especially masters students and beyond —working in our system doing internships, that helps us tremendously.” said Gardenhour. “It brings new ideas into the school system and helps us improve professional development.”