NILES SCHOOLS Board to hire social worker

The school board passed a resolution supporting open enrollment at the Gordon D. James Career Center.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
NILES -- The school board will provide a social worker to aid students.
The district will use a state wellness block grant to pay PSI Affiliates Inc. of Twinsburg $105,100 over two years.
"It's part of our continuous improvement plan and was recommended by the state that we have a social worker," Superintendent Patrick Guliano said at meeting Thursday.
"There's no general fund money involved."
The social worker will work with students and deal with pregnancy prevention, promoting abstinence and "good decision making," Guliano said.
"The social worker is licensed by the state and can do some things that we can't like going into homes and working with families to get them the assistance that's necessary," he said.
Library deal: The board also approved a two-year agreement with McKinley Memorial Library for a librarian at the district's five elementary schools.
"We're going to join forces to put everything on line," Guliano said.
A student at Bonham Elementary School, for example, could log onto a computer and find out if a book is available at one of the elementary school libraries or at the McKinley Library downtown.
The board will pay the librarian's $30,000 annual salary while the public library board will cover benefits.
Career center: Board members also approved a resolution supporting open enrollment at Gordon D. James Career Center.
Niles is one of five schools participating in the career center compact.
Lordstown is the fiscal agent for the compact, which also includes Weathersfield, McDonald and Howland schools.
When Lordstown school board members approved open enrollment for the center, opening the center to any qualified student in the state, they asked their superintendent, Ray Getz, to obtain resolutions of support from the member district school boards by Aug. 28.
Open enrollment is expected to cut costs for all of the compact districts by bringing in additional state money.
"All of this is an effort to reduce our costs," Guliano said.
The agreement authorizing the involvement of the school district expires next year and all of the districts except Niles have passed nonbinding agreements to continue their affiliation into a new contract.
Niles hasn't made a decision and is considering joining the Trumbull Career and Technical Center instead.
Contractor ads: The board will meet in special session at noon Sept. 5 in the administration building to approve advertisements for bids for a general contractor for new middle school construction
dick@vindy.com