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South Range schools approve before, aftercare for students
By ROBERT CONNELLY
NORTH LIMA
South Range schools will offer before- and after-school care for district students when classes begin Monday.
The South Range Board of Education unanimously approved the program at its meeting Monday night. Superintendent Dennis Dunham said families of 50 students expressed interest in the program in a district survey in July.
The program will run from 6:30 to 7:35 a.m. before school and 3 to 5 p.m. after school for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. The cost will be $5 per student per hour.
Jennifer Frank, a district aide, will administer the program, which will offer a ratio of one aide for every eight or nine kids, Dunham said.
“We know that there’s a period of time that it’s difficult for parents to be able to take care of their kids before school starts and after. So we feel there is a need for that,” Dunham said.
Parents are being registered for it now, he added.
In other business, a vote on a special board meeting to open bids received on a new district bus garage was tabled because electricity plans still were needed. The project will be funded by the last of the local fund initiative funds from the new school bond issue – between $100,000 and $105,000.
In 2007, district voters approved a 28-year, 7.9-mill bond issue for the building of the new schools to raise $18.3 million, or 48 percent of the cost. The state provided nearly $20 million, or 52 percent.
“We’re hoping that [special meeting] can still be done in August by Monday the 31st,” said Jim Phillips, district treasurer.
Balog, Steines, Hendricks and Manchester Architects Inc. of Youngstown was the architect on the new school building project and also is on the new bus garage. It will be about 3,200 square feet, or triple the current space next to the board of education offices along state Route 46.
Dunham also talked about the district starting before September and on Monday for the first time.
“We really need to have our kids learning and our teachers [teaching] as if they have been through the first month of school after the first six days. If not – all the work that we put into the start of a new school year and really trying to move up that instruction schedule so that we’re prepared for tests in March and April – I would have to question some of the decisions,” Dunham said.
“We can get a lot done in six days and then take four days off for [Canfield] Fair week.”