School Board Ready To Get Back To Normal

At the July 9 meeting of the McDonald County R-1 School District Board of Education, board members expressed a desire to get kids back in school.

Superintendent Mark Stanton mentioned that the district got the "green light" from the McDonald County Health Department to start summer school, which is optional and allows the district to practice for the fall and learn things that work and things that do not.

He said, "We're excited. Our community needs our schools. Our students need a place to go and be around their peers and reunite and have that sense of normalcy."

Board member Chris Smith said he is glad the school district is getting back to normal. Other board members expressed similar sentiments.

Stanton said, "I promised the community none of the decisions we are making are done lightly ... We will make mistakes, but we will keep our kids safe."

Board president Frank Woods presented the board with a proposed resolution to request that the governor veto House Bill 1854. He said the board has been asked to sign and other districts have signed resolutions as well. The bill has "a lot of good stuff" in it but also something bad.

The bill includes an amendment that would limit the amount of time for school board candidates to file. The resolution states that the amendment would reduce the amount of time for filing for most school board candidates from five weeks to three weeks, over Christmas break.

The resolution spells out several problems with the amendment, including the facts that school districts will not be in session for most of the candidate filing window and school district offices are traditionally closed completely for several days over Christmas break; and that snow and ice storms sometimes force school districts to close school district offices during candidate filing because employees cannot safely get to or from work, further decreasing the opportunities to file.

Board members agreed they did not see the benefit of the amendment. They passed the resolution.

In other business, the board approved cafeteria lunch prices for the year.

Stanton noted the board does not just set the prices, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has a calculator that shows districts how much they need to adjust their prices each year. This year they had to raise the price by 15 cents at the elementary level, Stanton said. They raised prices at the high school level last year, so they would not have to raise them at the high school level this year, he said. He also added they did not have the prices for milk available.