Personnel action was at the center of Tuesday night’s Cherokee County Board of Education meeting.

The board approved contracts for Ben East, Principal at Sand Rock School and Seth Nyman, Principal at Cherokee County High.

Those contracts will include an adjustment in the salary schedule.

Principals are paid a base salary off the 12-month teacher salary matrix, then they receive supplements which.

Guice says they have not received raises on their supplements since 2003.

He took the raises they have missed out on and put them back in to bring the principals back in line with the salary schedule everyone else is paid off of.

Superintendent Mitchell Guice, who says the changes will also apply to two other tenured principals.

Board member Lynn Rochester voted against the contracts after expressing concerns about why the changes were necessary.

In other action, the board accepted the retirement of long time Spring Garden Agriscience Teacher Dennis Tierce.

During the meeting, Stan Rogers, President of the Former FFA Alumni Association, asked the board to make sure the Tierce’s replacement has an Ag education background with their first priority being Ag Education and the FFA.

Rogers also asked the board to consider posting the job as a 10-month position as opposed to a 9-month position.

He also asked that the new Ag teacher not have coaching duties.

In other action, the board voted to change the contract of Nurse Supervisor Theresa Thompson from a 9-month to a 12-month contract with no supplement.