The Vance County Board of Education must confront a hairy issue again Monday night.
Dwain Coleman, the president of the Granville County chapter of the NAACP, has signed up to address the board “about the braids/dreadlock haircutting issue within the school system.” He said he expects his group to have five people.
Coleman spoke to the school board on the same issue at its meeting March 14. He said one black student at Southern Vance High School was threatened with exclusion from the boys’ basketball team this school year because of his ethnic hairstyle. The student did play on the team and kept his hair.
Coleman complained that Superintendent Norm Shearin did not respond to a letter about the situation, and he called for an investigation into what he judged to be some sports coaches’ discriminatory policies on hair.
Shearin said he settled the situation with a phone call to the high school principals, but Coleman was not satisfied. He said in a subsequent article in The Daily Dispatch that the school system does not have the uniform acceptance of ethnic hairstyles that Shearin suggested at the board meeting.
Also on the agenda for Monday’s 7 p.m. meeting at the Administrative Services Center on Graham Avenue are a number of referrals from board committees:
* The Policy Committee is bringing a new policy on the disposal of surplus personal property up for a second reading and final approval. The policy, meant to address annual audit needs, would allow the finance director or purchasing director to sell unneeded items worth less than $5,000 without prior approval by the school board. The committee also is recommending an expansion in the definition of acts of school violence that must be reported to the superintendent and law enforcement, as well as a procedural change in the policy for letting people use sick leave they haven’t earned yet.
* The Building and Grounds Committee is recommending the approval of a $1 lease of Northern Vance High School’s pole vault area for a Vaulthouse summer camp and the acceptance of the list of items for the annual auction of surplus property, set for 10 a.m. Saturday, April 30, at E.O. Young Elementary School.
* The Finance Committee is sending two budget amendments, one of which largely shuffles money among budget lines and one of which would take $12,068 fro the fund balance to spend on vehicles. The committee also is recommending the approval of the proposed $72 million budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 and a declaration of four vehicles as surplus so they can be sold at the auction April 30. The vehicles are a 1997 Dodge Intrepid, a 1993 Chevrolet box truck, a 1987 half-ton Chevy truck and a 1987 three-quarter-ton Chevy truck.
* The Personnel Committee has its usual assortment of hirings, retirements, leaves of absence and new substitute teachers.
The superintendent’s report Monday night is due to include the presentation of monthly attendance awards to New Hope Elementary School and Henderson Middle School; recognition of the Northern Vance students of Jeff Coleman’s who won the state automotive technology competition, Phillip Brewer and J.C. Poythress III; an appearance by an Eaton-Johnson Middle School student, Americus Williams; a presentation by Tamela Ayscue on the National Staff Development Council’s Coaches Academy; and United Way presentations.