School Board Meeting Summary-November 17, 2025

A photo of various WCS school board members with staff who earned the Servant’s Heart Award for the Valle Crucis school. Photo Credits: The Watauga Democrat

Roz Rabinowitz, Junior Editor of The Powderhorn and Student School Board Representative

The monthly school board meeting was this Monday, November 17. These meetings often cover accomplishments of students and staff throughout the County, and the board passes policies that directly affect Watauga County school system. After the normal opening session, call to order, and moment of silence, the meeting began with Dr. Leslie Alexander presenting her superintendent report.

The Superintendent report covered the reopening of the New Valle Crucis school and the recent remote day that Watauga County Schools had due to inclement weather. As the Student Board of Education Representative alongside Athena Elliot, we are responsible for presenting a student report. For the student report this month we covered the difficulties of the new camera policy for remote days, Mr. WHS, Watauga High School’s Trunk or Treat, the new Valle Crucis school, Superintendent Mo Greene visiting Watauga County Schools, and Watauga DECA’s fall competition. 

During this Board meeting, Dr. Alexander, Dr. Childers, and County Commissioner Braxton Eggers recognized several Watauga sports teams that had great accomplishments during their season. The sports they recognized were Men's and Women's Cross Country for making it to the  state championship. The Women's Cross Country Team was named the new 6A state champions, and the Men's Team placed 6th. Sophomore Calie Townsend was congratulated on winning first place at the 6A West Regional Championship. 

The Women's Volleyball Team was honored for being named Conference Champions following an undefeated conference season. They were also the regional champions and the state runner up. Junior Ashlyn Smith was recognized for receiving the North Carolina Farm Bureau Sportsmen Ship award, and junior Laney Gragg and  senior Emma Pastusic for being named first team all - state. 

Also congratulated at this month's board meeting, senior Chloe Weigl secured a 10th place finish at the Golf State Championship after being named the top scorer in the Northwestern 6A/7a conference and finishing 5th at Regionals. 

 Additionally the Women's Tennis Team won the Northwestern Conference after an undefeated season and was named the Northwestern regional champions. 

After recognizing all of these sports teams at Watauga High School Dr. Alexander presented the Servants Heart Award to multiple people in the County. The Servants Heart Award is the highest Award that can be given by a Superintendent. This award was presented to faculty and staff of Valle Crucis School, The Valle Crucis Conference Center, Caldwell Community College’s Watauga Campus, and the Appalachian State Child Development Center.

Since no one signed up for public comment, the Board moved right into the consent agenda. The consent agenda included some policies from the past month because the Board is operating under two batches of policy currently. These policies included under the consent agenda had no changes to actual substance and only included small technical changes. The consent agenda was moved by Board Vice-Chair Alison Idol and then seconded by Adam Hege. After the consent agenda was passed the board moved into their budget resolution.

Mr. Nash, the Financial Advisor for Watauga County Office presented this year's budget resolution to the board. In this resolution Mr. Nash included how much of our budget is going to different sections in our School System.

Public Schools- $36,996,536

Local Current Expense- $16,886,584

Federal grant- $2,593,342

Capital Outlay- $13,770,216

School Nutrition- $2,649,100

Extended Learning Centers- $779,869

Special Revenues- $3,964,491

Total- $77,640,138

This budget resolution showed big improvements from the past year and was passed quickly by Hege motioning and Idol seconding.

After passing the budget resolution, the Board moved into new policy. Dr. Wayne Eberle presented a multitude of policies for first reading to the Board. First read means that the Board does not have to take action  on these policies and are instead just seeing them for the first time. The policies that were presented are as follows: 

3210: Parental Inspection of and Objection to Instructional Materials

3510: Religious-Based Exemptions from School Programs

4120: Domicile or Residence Requirements 

4318: Use of Wireless Communication Devices

5024/6127/7266: Emergency Epinephrine Delivery Systems

5070/7350: Public Records - Retention, Release, and Disposition

6125: Administering Medicines to Students 

6340: Transportation Service/Vehicle Contracts

7100: Recruitment and Selection of Personnel

7820: Personnel Files

4400-R(1): Attendance - High School

As the student Board of Education Representative, I selected the following policies that are most important for students to be aware of.

3210: Parental Inspection of and Objection to Instructional Material

This policy is in direct correlation with a new state law that requires schools to have a catalog with all the book titles held in the libraries of that school. This includes all teachers' personal libraries as well. This catalog can be accessed on the school’s website. If a parent would like to inspect a specific title/book, they can fill out a form on the website to do so. 

4318: Use of Wireless Communication Devices

This policy is essentially adding basic footnotes to the already existing cell phone policy that was put in place at the beginning of the year. Our school district is ahead of the game because our practice is already meeting policy. 

4400-R(1): Attendance - High School

Policy 4400-R(1) addresses a couple of rules and regulations regarding attendance at the high school level. The most notable being that students can no longer fail a class just based on attendance. This means that students who have missed over 10% of a class can still pass if their grade is passing. If a student does not pass a class and also misses 10% of said class, an FF will appear on their transcript. An FF is essentially telling people who look at a student’s transcript that this student failed based on the grade, and that the student missed 10% of the class. Often this policy is misinterpreted to say that attendance does not matter, but, for student athletes the attendance policy has not changed from previous years. Student athletes still have to attend 90% of school in order to be allowed to play their sport.

After the first read of all of these policies, basic board operations, and comments, the November school board meeting was adjourned.