Tuesday, June 16, 2015
By ROBERT CONNELLY
NORTH LIMA
Drug testing and the transportation/activity fees will continue next school year at South Range schools.
Superintendent Dennis Dunham said there were no tests that came back with positive results during the 2014-15 school year, the first year the district implemented drug testing for athletes in grades seven through 12, students with parking permits and those in clubs and band.
He also said nearly 600 students were tested in the initial year.
The South Range Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved drug testing for the 2015-16 school year during its meeting at the South Range schools complex.
It will begin for next school year before fall sports practices begin. Two local doctors had supplied the funding last year, which Dunham said he would pursue again this year.
The transportation/activity fee will continue next year as well. That is $100 per student per school year for all athletics and a maximum of $175 per family.
The cost goes down for co-curricular and extracurricular activities, with that maximum at $100 per family for multiple participation in those activities, such as $70 per student for speech team. Dunham said the fees brought in about $40,000 in revenue last year.
Resident Richard Ferenchak asked the board about programming at South Range Elementary that had been done by Dana Veneskey, an elementary-school music teacher.
She was part of the reduction in force approved by the board in February.
Ferenchak asked the board if a senior project or the Parent-Teacher Organization could take on the programming, such as Dinner with Dad and Evening with Mom.
“Those are all valuable programs we have in place,” Dunham said. He further said, for any support organization, “It’s very difficult to find volunteers to put on the caliber of program that we’re used to.”
Veneskey attended the meeting but did not speak.
Treasurer Jim Phillips gave a presentation on the district’s improved financial outlook.
The improvement in the financial forecast was mostly due to an influx of $307,348 in real-estate property taxes, some of that through delinquent property taxes collected, and about $320,000 not being spent from a contingency fund.
“We still need to keep an eye on how we’re going to continue financing the district,” Phillips said.