HULBERT – Superintendent Wayne Ryals applauded Hulbert High School Principal Kenneth Bridges’ crackdown on discipline issues during Monday night’s monthly board meeting.

“I’m very proud of the way Mr. Bridges is handling discipline,” said Ryals. “A lot of people think he’s a hard case – and I guess he is – but we need that.”

Ryals said the crackdown has resulted in a few angry parents, but school officials are dealing with them properly.

“We’re sticking to the rules,” said Ryals.

Bridges said students are in the “testing” phase with school officials, seeing if they will be punished as they’ve been told they would.

“Last Wednesday, I spent five hours dealing with discipline,” he said. “We’re having a lot of cell phone issues.”

But when parents are forced to come to the school to get students’ phones back, those problems are generally solved from that point forward, he said.

Some students have been forced to attend Saturday school, with seven attending last weekend. Bridges said it’s an eye-opener for other students as well, because once a student is given Saturday school, he or she has off-campus privileges taken away for the entire nine-week period.

About two students from the upper elementary grades have attended Saturday school because of disciplinary issues, according to elementary Principal Cole Purget. Both were on request from the students’ parents.

Bridges also reported on drug testing held in October. Staff members and about 200 students went through the process in half a day’s time. Each month, about 20 students will be tested at random.

Ryals reported on a technology grant the school was recently awarded, and said about $25,000 of the $75,000 grant must be spent on training. There are also other requirements the school must meet before it receives the grant, he said.

In other action, board members – minus Kathy Lenard and Rick Gassaway, who were absent – voted to adopt a final budget for the 2008-’09 school year. They also approved extra duty contracts for the school year, Duration of Needs contracts for high school cheerleader sponsors, and an agreement for services rendered between Hulbert and a Cookson Hills Head Start teacher.

What’s next

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Hulbert School Board will be Monday, Dec. 8, at 6:30 p.m. in the Hulbert School Auditorium.