ESCANABA – The Escanaba School Board held its meeting in the newly unveiled Student Success Center.

Prior to the meeting, the board held an open house for staff, students, parents and community members. Guests were treated to a tour of the center and light refreshments,

The renovated building contains a large student workspace and individual classroom space, but it also has a working kitchen, laundry, and showering facilities. It welcomes students for the first time today.

Following the open house, the board held its Committee of the Whole meeting in the new center.

No actions were taken in the meeting, but rather, a discussion regarding policy changes, financial reports, and the superintendent’s goals.

Escanaba Area Schools Superintendent Coby Fletcher presented his first goal to the board, which involved giving more independence to teachers in the classroom.

“I wanted to convey the idea that we trust in that expertise and as superintendent, I believe that they deserve a certain amount of autonomy in their classrooms to do what they do,” he explained.

Following the meeting, Fletcher explained that the administration should trust teachers’ ability to educate and work collaboratively with other teachers to engage with students.

“Trust is the first piece, right? You have to start with the assumption that teachers are professionals, that they have expertise, and that you can rely on their judgment in the classroom,” he said.

dded that the next step is to allow the teachers to further develop their expertise in genuine, meaningful ways such as collaborating and working with other teachers.

In other business, Fletcher presented impending policy changes to the board, such as Title 9, and earned sick time.

“With the new administration, Title 9 has been rolled back to essentially what it was in 2020, which was only about a year ago that we adopted new Title 9 policies and now we’re going back. So these are very similar to the ones we had before,” Fletcher said.

The board is also preparing for the Earned Sick Time Act, set to go into effect this month.

Fletcher said the act won’t affect the majority of the teachers as they are a part of union group which supersedes the act.

“For those employees that are not; essentially what this does is it expands the reasons for which they can take sick leave and it also maybe more tightly regulates how we grant that leave and what it involves and things like that. So the Title 9 policies are major changes, but changes that we’re familiar with, and the earned sick time leave isn’t major, but we need to bring ourselves in line with them,” Fletcher explained.

The board also reviewed financials, including the activity fund, the athletics fund, the general fund, and hot lunches.

“Our financials are pretty strong,” he said.

Fletcher and board members review the financials each month, something not every school district does.

“We want the public to know that board members are aware of our revenues and our expenditures and how we think about them. (It’s) just an additional layer of accountability that gives the public assurance that their tax money would be used the right way,” he explained.

The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 17 at 6 p.m. at the Escanaba Upper Elementary Schoo