South Range Schools get special-education classroom waiver

Staff report

NORTH LIMA

South Range school board members finalized action on a waiver for the 2016-17 school year to forgo the 60-month age differential within one special education and handicap classroom.

The Ohio Department of Education’s Office for Exceptional Children granted South Range School District the waiver for a student who exceeded the age differential limit by two months at the high school.

“If we did not do this we would have to have additional [classrooms], which is very costly for a two-month difference,” said schools Superintendent Dennis Dunham.

Board member Corey Yoakam, who also is a special-education teacher in Boardman Schools, said in his experience, it’s common in all handicap classrooms to obtain this waiver.

In other news, South Range students will begin school Monday, attending for a full week then having the following week off – Aug. 29 to Sept. 5. Classes will resume Sept. 6.

As students resume classes, they will experience a 25- cent increase for school lunches. In the middle and high schools, the lunch cost goes from $2.50 to $2.75. In the elementary school, the lunch price increases from $2.25 to $2.50.

Kaitlyn Pizzola, district food service director, said that price is dictated by the ODE.