Monday’s Carthage R-9 Board of Education was a first for the local board members, instead of packets of paper documents, the board had laptop computers in front of them.
“This is a historic first for us,” Board President Mark Westhoff told the crowd at the Carthage Junior High Cafeteria, where the meeting was held. ‘You are all seeing our first paperless meeting.”
It’s a move many government bodies are making. The Carthage City Council went paperless three years ago, meaning instead of copying every document a council member needs for each member, the city clerk emails digital copies of the documents to the board members.
Those reports and documents are also available on the city’s website.
Superintendent Blaine Henningsen said, in the case of the Carthage Board of Education, the agenda and documents and reports that will be considered at a meeting will be available on the district’s website, www.carthage.k12.mo.us, under the “Board of Education” drop-down menu.
“We have gone to Boarddocs, which is a vendor that provides the capability to have paperless board meetings,” Henningsen said. “What that means is everything is online, our agenda is online, the public can access board agendas in advance of board meetings and copy handouts and presentations.”
Henningsen said the district hopes to save staff time and money with the move.
“We think it’s going to be a great way to be more transparent to the public and to save some money,” Henningsen said. “We won’t have secretaries making 15 or 20 packets for board members for public meetings, including 50 or 60 or 70 copies in each packet. It takes a lot of time to put those things together and we think we can save money by doing this.”
In other business, the board presented its monthly “Do the Right Thing” award to high school student Preston Shivley for his volunteer work helping a another student with school work.
Prior to the meeting, the board heard the Select Choirs from the seventh and eight grade sing and heard from the Carthage Junior High Leadership Council about what it had accomplished this year.
• In closed session, the board accepted resignations from first grade teacher Christina Brown, psychological examiner Ted Estes and kindergarten teacher Christa Kinzey, effective at the end of the school year.
• The board also accepted plans to retire from high school counselor Donna Aronson, fifth grade teacher Jo Collins, Columbian reading teacher Helen Dillard and high school special education teacher Roy Freeman.
• The board hired Machelle Hartley, practical nursing instructor at the Tech Center North, effective Jan. 1, 2012. Hartley taught for two years at NEO College in Miami, Okla., and for 13 years at Franklin Technology Center in Joplin before coming to Carthage.
