Shen School Board approves negotiating contract for School Resource Officer

During the Shenandoah School Board meeting Monday, March 13, the board unanimously approved negotiating a contract for a School Resource Officer pending contractual agreements. Superintendent Kerri Nelson said the district has discussed adding this position for several years, which is included in the budget. However, she said the difficulty has been in securing the position.

“It’s not an easy position to fill,” Nelson said, explaining the training requirements. “It’s also a very expensive position, and we talked about how we can do this at the most responsible cost for the city and the school district, but there are a number of situations that have occurred over the years where a resource officer would be helpful.”

Nelson said she had begun a discussion with the Shenandoah Police Department on how the district and city can work together to secure the position of School Resource Officer.

She indicated about half the cost for the position would come from the district’s General Fund and said funds had been reserved over the last three years from the at-risk budget. With recent events, Nelson feels it is imperative to move forward in asking for the authority to negotiate a contract with the City of Shenandoah.

Nelson acknowledged that a School Resource Officer wouldn’t solve everything but said it would be an excellent place to start.

“They can’t prevent all things,” Nelson said. “They can’t fix all things; they can’t necessarily stop a weapon from coming in a door. But they can be there and have a very fast response time and be very resourceful to our students and our staff. I think the thing that they can also do is spend time coaching and teaching, and mentoring our students about all kinds of aspects. I think they can be a very strong educational piece as well.”

Resident Jackie Cowan was present at the meeting and spoke during the public comment period about a mass email sent to parents from the school district following last week’s incident where a student brought a weapon into the K-8 building.

“Myself, as well as other parents, are very concerned about the student access to weapons and the ease for them to be able to just walk into the school with them and for them to not be identified unless it is brought to the attention of faculty and staff there by a student,” Cowan said addressing the board.

Cowan said while it is not unreasonable for the district to ask students to be alert and aware of potential threats and communicate with staff, she feels what was written in the email received from the district last week is putting too much responsibility on the students.

“In the email, it said that they expect students and they encourage students to share information with trusted adults regarding the weapons being brought into the school,” Cowan said.

Instead of placing that responsibility solely on the students, she feels the school needs to add more preventative security measures at the district’s buildings, including metal detectors to protect students and staff.

“I appreciate that they encourage student awareness on gun safety and for them to communicate concerns or potential threats; however, it puts too much risk and responsibility on the student, and we don’t want there to be a situation where they don’t have the opportunity to communicate a threat,” she said.

Cowan said she requested that the board consider implementing increased security measures in a timely manner for the safety of students and faculty that would reduce the possibility of students entering the school buildings with weapons. She said, “this is an ever-changing world,” and feels Shenandoah could set an example for other rural schools to add increased security measures such as metal detectors.

School Board President Jean Fichter addressed Cowan, saying the board and district are taking the matter “very seriously,” but could not respond specifically to Cowan’s request during the meeting.

Nelson said, “We are trying to take some immediate action,” referencing the School Resource Officer. “We understand the panic and concern.”

In a follow-up email, Nelson said there is still work to be done to finalize the scope of service, hiring process and actual cost of the position. Nelson said in addition to the School Resource Officer; the district was also looking into available security software recommended during the Safety Audit the school participated in last fall.

In other business, the board:

Discussed pending larger purchases the district will need to look at making.

Nelson said the district was “still wading through what we are and are not going to be bringing forth in the next few weeks to come,” so she could not give the board a final list of purchases Monday night. She did, however, say the district had budgeted for more significant expenses in transportation for purchasing new buses. She said it had been about three years since the district last purchased buses and, since that time, the price per bus has increased from around $90,000 to $130,000 for a standard bus. She said bid requests would be going out and the board would see this item on the agenda for April. The district must meet specific requirements, including bus seat belts, so she advised the board to plan on around $260,000 per bus. She also noted that unless the district purchased a bus in stock, they would be looking at one and a half years to obtain it.

Additional items Nelson said the district has budgeted and needs are a new server for the high school and camera systems, and she said it needs to be updated to run more advanced technology.

Nelson said the district is also looking at purchasing interactive classroom panels and that those would run around $3,500 each. She said the district could not buy enough for the whole campus simultaneously, but it is needed.

She said they were also looking at updating the document cameras, which would securely allow monitoring of what students are accessing and searching online.

“Yes, we have filters, yes we have all kinds of tools, but this would send more of an alert letting us know what’s occurring,” Nelson said.

She said that the safety audit the school participated in this past fall indicated software of this nature would also come with weapon detection.

Nelson said meetings with vendors had been set up over the next few weeks to learn more about the software and pricing and determine what the district would need to do to impellent software along those lines.

While some of these items have been budgeted for this year, the board would need to look at the fiscal year 2024 budget to cover some of those expenses, Nelson said. Those expenses would come from the district SAVE Funds, PPEL Funds or the State Safety Funds currently available.

Approved the purchase of a truck, plow and spreader for the maintenance department. Nelson said the department needed a new truck, but she was also requesting approval for the district to purchase a plow and spreader for the truck. Rob Addy, director of maintenance and operations, said his department already clears the district buildings parking lots, but cannot treat them to prevent slick conditions. Without the equipment available to treat the parking lots, he must contact the company the district contracts with to treat the lots after the snow has been removed. He sometimes said staff and students are already on campus and in the buildings by the time the contractor can get to the lots. Nelson said buying the equipment would be a positive move to be more self-efficient and respond to inclement weather conditions quicker.

Nelson said the district has budgeted for the equipment, but said the prices have increased since the last time the district obtained a quote on the truck and equipment. She said the current MSRP quote for the truck is $51,870, $9,822 for the snow plow and $13,000 for the spreader. Addy said those prices would be the maximum as the school qualifies for the lower state pricing.

Nelson said this would be an expense for the district, “but we look at the number of slips and falls we’ve had in parking lots and other locations; we believe that we need to have this equipment to help prevent some of those injuries from occurring.”

Nelson said the expense would come out of the PPEL Fund.

Approved adding the following positions for the 2023-24 school year: Middle School Musical Director ($1,000), Middle School Technical Director ($1,000), High School Band Flag Sponsor ($650), In season Coach/Bus Driver Duties ($45 per trip) and Summer School Instruction (core) Per Diem of BA 1 Base Wage.

Nelson said there had been discussion over the last several yours concerning these positions. She said the Middle School Musical director had been volunteer-based for the past two years. She referred to it as a time-consuming position that should be a paid position. After looking at what other districts have in place and finding it is typically a paid position to continue this theatrical program for middle school students, she requested a stipend for the position.

She said the Shenandoah School District is the only school in the Hawkeye 10 that does not pay the High School Band Flag Sponsor.

The $45 stipend for in-season coach/bus driver duties Nelson hopes will encourage those in-season coaches who drive a bus to be willing to take on the additional bus driver duties that occur.

She said that summer school instructors have always been challenging to fill and have become more so as wages have increased. Nelson said many of the district’s teachers work second jobs and she believes paying those instructors (core) Per Diem of BA 1 Base Wage will help fill the reading, math and science instructions.

Approved Collective Bargaining Agreement with SSA+ for 6.3517% of total salary cost for $135,300.21 pending ratification. This will increase the base hourly wage by $1, increase the base bus route wage by $4 and extend the existing contract by one year.

Approved contracts for the 2023-24 school year for Emma Roberts, Elizabeth Skillern and Hunter Thomas. The board also approved modifications for the 2023-24 school year pending requirements for Mallory Beery, Dustin Comstock, Toni Comstock, Zach Dotzler, Angela Hunter, Kristin Moore, Keegan Nelson, Ty Ratliff, Jay Soderberg and Gabrielle Sparks. Resignations were approved for Brittany Beckett and Vance Peterson.

Set a public hearing on April 10 for the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget and 2023-24 school calendar.

Approved AEA Purchasing agreement for food, small wares and ware wash for the 2023-24 school year.