North Greene considering school resource officer
By Carmen Ensinger
The North Greene School District is looking into the possibility of hiring a School Resource Officer to be on its campuses during school hours and at extracurricular activities.
North Greene Superintendent Jackie Kuchy said she has spoken to both White Hall and Roodhouse police committees.
“I went to Roodhouse’s Police Committee meeting on Monday and I feel like the sentiment was there to provide us a resource officer,” she said. “It comes down to money. If we were to pay between 70 to 75 percent of their salary, I think they would be open to it. I feel that 75 percent is pretty fair, especially if you are asking an officer to go to extracurricular activities.”
Prior to meeting with Roodhouse, Kuchy met with White Hall and said she has never heard anything back from them.
“It sounded to me like Kyle (Roodhouse Police Chief) Robison and Luke (White Hall Police Chief) Coultas were supposed to meet after Monday’s meeting,” Kuchy said. “I think it comes down to which council was ready to work with us. The theory is we would have someone in place in August.”
Kuchy gave an update on the daycare center.
“The fire marshal was here and is coming back and we need to make sure we have all things in order for a permit visit in a week or two,” she said. “Several things need to be set up and then the licenses representative will be back to do the inspection and tell us things we have to fix. We hope within the next 10 days we will be ready for that.”
Kuchy said that they have been given the paperwork needed for families to apply.
“We need to understand our numbers and interest as far as staffing is concerned,” she said. “We also need an intergovernmental agreement with the Regional Office of Education. I feel that is their responsibility to pay their fees for that. We will see if they come to us with any sort of proposal.”
Kuchy discussed the insurance rates with Egyptian Trust.
“I have provided a rate renewal card with information for each of the plans they offer,” Kuchy said. “As I mentioned last month, I anticipated us being in one of the better tiers. We are in Tier 2, but it still comes with a significant increase.”
Kuchy said that a couple of districts have asked to come back into the trust.
“They left the trust to go out on their own and really got pummeled,” Kuchy said. “They were Tier 7 so they got really hard. We have not heard of any other district leaving. There are currently 87 member districts.
The board discussed its drug testing program. Currently, the pool of students in the program includes all athletes in jr. high and high school plus all of the students in FFA, NHS and basically any extra-curricular activity. The way the school policy is written now, the school must test 10 students per month, via a urine test.
District Secretary Rhonda Lawson looked into the program and found out that the district can rewrite the plan and take it down to five students per month.
“We do not have to include the ag students, FFA or anything,” Lawson said. “We can just strictly include athletes if you want to alter your policy.”
Lawson gave more news saying that instead of the urine tests they can use the swab test which is much faster and costs the same. The current drug testing program costs the district around $9,000 a year. Board member Casey Nell made a motion to go to the mouth swab and refer the issue to the policy committee to determine how many students they are going to test per month.
