By Sarah Campbell
scampbell@salisburypost.com
SALISBURY — The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education voted Monday to take steps to align the district’s medication policy with state statute and recommendations from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.
Dr. Walter Hart, assistant superintendent of adminstration, outlined the proposed changes to the board.
“This past winter we participated in an audit through the Department of Public Instruction and the nursing consultant who worked with us made some suggested changes to our policy,” he said.
Hart said the first change would require authorization from a health care provider and a parent before any prescription or over-the-counter medication is administered to students.
“It’s a stricter interpretation of the statute than we have now,” he said. “Our current policy allows for parent authorization only.”
Hart told board members that the original prescription bottle with the student’s name, dosage information and physician information would be accepted as a form of authorization by a health care provider.
Another revision would not allow staff to supply any medication.
“The only medication that staff can provide now is a topical gel used in the case of a bee sting, but we’ve been advised that even that could be problematic,” Hart said.
The final change would allow high school students to carry and self-administer a one-day supply of over-the-counter medicine such as cold medicine and ibuprofen.
The current policy doesn’t allow students to be in possession of over-the-counter drugs in any manner.
“We believe that high schools kids have legitimate needs for things like Tylenol and Advil,” Hart said.
The board also approved several changes to the district’s personnel policies.
Board members passed a revised policy addressing how school administrators are selected.
The new policy includes input from the School Improvement Team for the principal selection process. School improvement Teams consist of school administrators, teachers, parents and students.
The board also voted to amend its employee grievance policy.
Deloris Morris, assistant superintendent for human resources, said conflicting information in two policies prompted the merging of the two.
The board also voted to revise language in the reduction in force and evaluation of personnel work performance policies.
“We’re just cleaning up these policies,” Morris said.
The board passed all of the amended policies on first reading Monday.
If approved during the second reading May 23, the changes will take place at the start of next school year.

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In other action:
• The board voted to add a second public comment section before the board breaks before closed session at each meeting.
School board member Mike Caskey requested the change after hearing from residents who haven’t been able make the 5 p.m. meeting.
“This will allow people that have to work or have child care issue time to talk later in the meeting,” he said.
The board voted to allow the additional public comment period for two months as a trial.
• Superintendent Dr. Judy Grissom said the school system’s website is continuing to be updated with information about the budget. She said the latest information released by the state House of Representatives last week is now available on the site. To view the information, go to rss.k12.nc.us and click “budget outlook” on the right.
• Grissom announced the audio recording of the school board meetings will now be available on the school system’s website under the “board of education” tab. She said a button to the audio will soon be added to the homepage.
Contact reporter Sarah Campbell at 704-797-7683.