The Rob Roettger era has officially begun.
At its July 13 meeting, the Cheney School Board passed a resolution that designates Roettger as the Cheney School District superintendent.
Roettger took over for Dr. Deb Clemens who has served as Cheney's superintendent from 2013-16 and recently became the new superintendent of the North Thurston School District.
Roettger was previously the Lind-Ritzville Cooperative Schools superintendent from 2011-16.
The board passed resolutions that authorized Roettger to sign various applications and documents on behalf of the district.
In other action items, the board approved the second readings of revised school board policies: "Electronic Resources and Internet Safety," "Transitional Bilingual Instruction Program," "Alternative Learning Experience Courses" and "Nutrition and Physical Fitness."
Associate Superintendent Sean Dotson noted the "Nutrition and Physical Fitness" policy has significant changes in terms of wording, such as food and service guidelines, as well as physical education requirements.
"It used to say two credits of physical fitness," Dotson said. "Now it says one-and-a-half credits of physical fitness and half a credit of health."
Roettger brought up the June 22 meeting where several Cheney residents spoke of their concerns regarding the Washington state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction adding concepts like self-identity, gender expression and roles to its curriculum guidelines for the K-12 Health and Physical Education Learning Standards.
He said that while the policy states the district has to "adopt and implement a comprehensive health and fitness physical education curriculum that is consistent with the standards," it does not say the district has to "follow them exactly."
"I wanted to point this out because I think it's important that we understands there is local control when we make these decisions in curriculum adoption," Roettger said.
Dotson added that the district only has to teach three things from the standards: HIV prevention, CPR instruction and the use of automated external defibrillators.
Kassidy Probert, the district's director of finance, said the expenditures for the 2015-16 school year hit 72.8 percent of projected expenditures, which is less than 73.4 percent from last year, which Probert said is "right on track."
The district also collected 78.14 percent of its projected revenue, which is the same percentage as last year.
In other business: the board approved the surplus of old cabinets from Salnave Elementary School.
Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].
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