The Board moved its regular meeting up a week due to the upcoming Armstrong McCall Hair Show being held on the Coast next weekend. All members were present… and from looking around the room we might be here for a while…
The first part of the morning was spent with representatives of the WASHINGTON COUNTY CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, which is located in Greenville… They were present to talk with the Board about their plans to open a COSMETOLOGY school within the facility… They currently have approximately 240 female inmates… Now I’m going to give you the short version of this whole situation…. Regardless of what ANY ONES says, it appears to me that the Correctional facility has decided that there is a lot of money to be made on doing female INMATES HAIR… They currently have 4 licensed Cosmetologist serving time and they have set up a salon for them to do services on INMATES… DID I MENTION THIS WAS AN UNLICENSED SALON!!!!! Now what they really want to do is to let that 4 chair unlicensed salon be licensed as a SCHOOL!!!!! Don’t worry the Board wasn’t falling for that!!!!
Next was my turn… And I WISHED that I was driving a MAC TRUCK… I requested to be on the Board agenda so that I could go over some legislative items that would or could be discussed at the upcoming Mississippi Cosmetology School Association meeting…. I felt that it was important to see what the Board’s position would be on these topics…
- Taking out language “No member of the board shall be connected in any way with any school wherein cosmetology is taught”… All of the Board members was good with this removal of language, EXECPT Dot Ennis… She feels VERY STRONG that this would be a conflict of interest… I could see that if the Board members were still testing students, which is why the law reads the way it does… But now that the Board is not testing the students ITS ONLY FAIR THAT THE SCHOOLS HAVE A VOICE ON THE BOARD… You can own a 20 station salon grossing over a million dollars a year or be like Board Member Bertha Johnson and be the former regional director over SMART STYLES and over ALL the Smart Style Salons in the state of Mississippi and be on the Board but for them dealing with all those stylist and salons, it’s a positive voice and yes it truly has been but for an instructor working at a school it would be a conflict of interest!!!!!
- Instead of having pictures on “ALL LICENSES” change language to be on PRACTIONERS & INSTRUCTORS… All the Board members were ok with this…
- Recommending that we make one standardize Instructor Program for all courses… across the board 1000 hours… Does not matter what course… Cosmetology, Esthetics or Manicuring.. Boy did this unleash an AMBER that almost set the woods on fire… For some reason Cosmetologist, Dot Ennis and Instructor, Glenda Honeycutt voted AGAINST this…. There was no reasoning with them… Myself along with members of the Board tried to explain that all instructors are trained with the same set of textbooks… The Instructor’s Text Books do not cover or teach Finger waves, Nail Polish or Skin Care!!!!! Now it matters not to me the qualifications…. Meaning… College Credits, Work Experience, ETC… I’m pretty sure the Board can iron those decisions out… I have my opinion, but we need to get real with this Instructor program… It’s not fair that a Nail Tech with 1 year experience only has to take 1000 hour of Instructor Training and a Cosmetologist with 1 year experience has to take 2000 hours of Instructor Training… MAKES NO SCENSE!!!
Next was a meeting with DataLink.. This is the company that is developing the new computer software for the agency. They originally told the Board that the programs should launch in April and here we are in May and no software… The new target date is to be July 1 with the FIRST PHASE… Yeah I know you see the disappointment on the Boards face because we all new this meant that the new software probably will not be fully functional before the first of the year…. But the end product should be worth the wait… ON LINE License renewal!!!!
Executive Director, David Derrick, shared an email that he received from former Board member Leisa McElreath requesting the Board to re-visit the rules and regulations on how individuals obtain Continuing Education Hours… It appears that Leisa McElreath and Teresa Whitman are used to DOUBLE DIPPING!!!! For those who may not understand this term I will explain.. DOUBLE DIPPING is allowing a person to use the same Continuing Education class for multiple licenses… Say you have Instructor Licenses and a Master Cosmetology Licenses “which I can’t understand why you would but some people do” you would be allowed to use one class to obtain your continuing for both licenses… For me this is no different than letting a student enroll in Manicuring & Esthetics and use the same time to get credit for hours in both courses…. The Board made the right decision to correct this problem…
The Board office received official notice from the U.S. Department of Education stating that Day Spa Career College in Ocean Springs was official closed. : (
The Board discussed adopting a policy that would make Hair Show providers accountable when they do not provide the Educational Classes and/or follow the schedule that is approved by the Board.
RFP… “Request for Proposal” of a Testing Provider.. We are literally less than 30 weeks away for our contract expiring with PCS. My, how time flies when YOUR NOT HAVING FUN… I really don’t have anything against PCS, I rarely hear of ANY students failing…. They just have the WORST Customer Service!!!!!! Executive Director David Derrick told the Board that all of the Boards request for changes were submitted to ITS “Information Technology Services” in April and it was now in their hands…. Hopefully we will have some updated information in July…
I hate that I’m going to be missing the upcoming meeting June 27th… This is the Boards annual Election of Officers… I have an accreditation workshop in Washington, June 25th through 27th… This is going to be one interesting meeting as we have a few members with their sights on becoming the NEXT BOARD PRESIDENT… Damn I hate I’m going to miss this election!!!! But I will still get the JUICE for you…..
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I am for them being able to Instruct but maybe an amendment [?] or provision would need to be installed that would cover any time in the future that Members would again test students [it could happen, unlikely, but could] And what does it really matter – there is bias in all aspects of life… and there are means to reverse it! :)))
I am for a standard of Instructors Program hours being the same number of hours for EVERY domain… It’s simple logic – If you want to teach Biology or Math – you must still take the same number of EDUCATION classes… Your area of expertise is what may differ, not your education classes!!!
I must agree with both Leisa & Teresa for the most part! I am for the double dipping in SOME cases… If I take a class on Infection control, why can I NOT count it for both licenses? It can be used in both – It makes no logical sense to make me take that same class TWICE??? On the other hand [pardon the pun] – If I was licensed as a manicurist, I should NOT be able to use a HAIR seminar as CEU… but as YOU stated, an instructor’s license would supersede a master’s in most if not all cases I would think… [Some people erroneously think a “master’s license” is equivalent to an “Academic Masters Degree” – NOT!
Hair Show Policy: Thank goodness! But how would it affect the attendees who are there?
Next Mtg: Well I hate you won’t be there either because I do so rely on you and your posts! Whatever happened to video taping? I’m sure I will win no praise for bring this topic up again…
I too would hate to be on video, but it would be so nice to be able to see the meetings! It’s so simple. Some one video tapes it and up loads it to Youtube, you post link to Youtube post on MSBC website… Most 8 yr olds can do it with a cell phone so it is EASY… I don’t know why anyone would need to edit it… why would you need to edit what actually happens..? May for those private only for the EX/closed doors sessions… and even then, I think there should be more than someone’s “recollection” of events…
As always, thank you for giving us some information…