North Greene alerted to student loan scam
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By Carmen Ensinger
There is a scam going around that could affect every school district in the area and their former students with plans to attend college.
At the Wednesday, Oct. 15, school board meeting Superintendent Jackie Kuchy informed the board about the scam.
“I received a message from another local superintendent who was told by superintendent from another district that they had received fake parchment accounts,” Kuchy said. “So these people are creating these fake accounts to request transcripts. Then they are creating student loan accounts fraudulently with this information.”
Parchment is a platform whereby administrators can securely send and receive student credentials like transcripts, transfer records and college application documents.
Kuchy said they were not going to send out any information because they don’t want to be part of that scam.
The school improvement team met and talked about getting after school tutoring for the junior high students.
“Part of the school improvement money from a grant received was for tutoring,” Kuchy said. “Looking at attendance data, one of the key goals was focusing on analyzing that need and targeting some truancy concerns.”
The district is still dealing with the solar project issue. More than two years ago, North Greene approved a contract with a company to provide solar to the district. That company, and it’s contractor, had barely any contact with the district since that time until the project was turned over to a different contractor.
Several months ago, the current school board members voted to nullify the project. However, that didn’t stop a representative from the new contractor coming to the district and talking like the project was still on.
This representative was told that the district no longer wanted to do the solar project because they had very limited or no communication over the past two years and didn’t feel confident in the project anymore.
Kuchy updated the board on the happenings since the last board meeting.
“All I have received is their response from the firm they have,” Kuchy said. “Today I had a conversation with one of their representatives and we continue to go back and walk through the timeline of communication and the gaps in communication and I cannot fathom how this is an entity that we can have much confidence in to move forward with a project of this magnitude.”
Kuchy said the district’s attorney told her if it was something they wanted to still consider she would probably look to bring in another attorney who has more experience in this area.
“I just don’t know how you can recommend we move forward with something like this with such a red flag,” Board President Cale Hoesman said. “I have no faith in this company and really don’t want them on our property.”
Board members also discussed the demolition of the football field concession stand and restrooms.
“We had two bids, one was kind of a lump sum with some extras included and the other one was from Ballards for $5,200,” Kuchy said. “It makes more sense to go with Ballards for the demolition.”
The board approved unanimously going with Ballards for the demolition. The demolition will take place after football season has ended, around Nov. 1.
