Henry White has been named the interim principal of Blue Springs Elementary School Tuesday night after a shuffle in staffing among Limestone County Schools administrators.

White’s placement comes after Randy Hamilton took the position of Ardmore High School principal. Hamilton replaces Tommy Hunter after Hunter was named as the Human Resources Department director for the LCS central office. 

Limestone County Superintendent Tom Sisk said he hopes to be in a position to recommend a new principal for Blue Springs by the October meeting of the Board of Education. He added that he wasn’t aware of how many might have applied for the position so far.

Drug testing policy changes

Board member Bret McGill expressed a need to clarify that the proposed changes to the system’s drug testing policy is mainly directed at student athletes. In the last meeting, comments were made that implied that administrators planned to include all teachers in the revamped policy. However, McGill said, the subject only came up in the course of discussion, but was not intended to be taken as fact. He added that an article about the subject in a recent edition of The News Courier might have left the wrong impression.

Board chairman Earl Glaze said he did receive comments from teachers that were in favor of expanding the policy toward potential employees.

Sisk added that he agreed with McGill and doesn’t perceive drug use among employees as a serious threat, but hopes the board will enact a policy that gives the HR department enough “latitude” to investigate safety concerns. Overall, comments toward the changes have been positive.

“I have not heard a tremendous amount of negativity,” the superintendent said.  

Budget

Board members unanimously agreed to the FY 2016 budget, which includes using some leftover funds to build new bathrooms at Tanner High School and tornado shelters at Creekside Elementary School.

Additionally, the budget includes taking on more financial responsibility for the School Resource Officer program. Sisk said by adding more than $100,000 to the system’s half of the SRO budget, school officials are helping the Limestone Commission save funds to allocate toward attracting major industries to the area. If the commission can land big deals, that would potentially mean more revenue coming back to the schools. 

“It frees up money for the commission to continue to do some things for us,” he told board members, adding the move would be a small act of solidarity with the commission on the upcoming Huntsville TIF district negotiations. “What this does is allow us to be a minor partner with our commission — and they’re willing to do it.”

To take on the entire cost of the SRO program would run upwards of $700,000. McGill asked if Sisk if he would come back each year to ask that the system keep taking on more than its share.

“If (the commission) delivers,” Sisk said, adding that if the commission didn’t land any large industries that could provide incentives back to Limestone County Schools, he would be “more inclined” to let the commission take back larger portions of the SRO program.