During Tuesday night’s Elizabethton City School Board Meeting, the board worked through various items on their agenda.

One of those items was to approve a cooperative teaching agreement with the Elizabethton School Board and the Bristol City School Board of Education.

The agreement allows a teacher employed with the Bristol School System to teach a distance learning course to students at Elizabethton High School. Gardenhour said that the agreement will be key in helping the school system ensure that all courses will be available to students when a teaching shortage happens.

The agreement recently helped Elizabethton High School fill a gap in a Spanish language course for which the school system has now hired a teacher.

“We have had a difficult time trying to attract and find a Spanish teacher,” said Gardenhour. “And it’s everywhere. Everyone is having issues trying to fill those.”

The board approved the agreement unanimously.

The school board voted unanimously to approve an amendment to their test security guidelines. Now, if any employee with the school system is found to not be following security guidelines they will be placed on “immediate suspension” with the action being grounds for dismissal.

“With testing security, there has been a lot of issues around the country and we are not immune in Tennessee,” said Gardenhour during Tuesday’s meeting.

The amendment also adds language that embargoed data can only be shared with school personnel as determined by the Director of Schools and that personnel can not share embargoed data with external parties.

The school board also approved to turn four part-time custodial jobs at Harold McCormick Elementary and Elizabethton High School into two full-time positions, making a full-time custodial position available at each of the above-mentioned schools.

“I think this is a great thing that you have done because custodians work so hard,” said board member Susan Peters. “The benefits will attract more people. With them short-handed, they work an unbelievable amount of hours.”

Lastly, the school board approved the tenure for teachers Kathryn Daugherty, Bethany Hawkins, G. Thomas Hopson II, Nicole Horne, Sara Penley, Ryan Presnell, and Summer Fleenor.

The next school board meeting will be on Tuesday, Dec. 18.