By Rich Wicks | Times Vedette
On Sept. 16 during the regular meeting of the Adair-Casey School Board, Principal Ed Den Beste gave an update on changes due to legislative items.
“We’ve got two new laws… the first one is the attendance law,” Den Beste said. “We have a letter that we’re going to be sending out. It says that at eight days (of absence), a letter will be handed out… we will send out letters at 12 days and have a conference with the parents. Then at 20 days, we turn it over to the county attorney.”
Board member Blair Carney asked how many parent conferences might be expected under this new law, in an average year.
“Twelve absences in a semester, last year probably about 15 or 20,” Den Beste said.
Den Beste also spoke about the new ELI (Early Literacy Intervention) law and said he had met with staff about it earlier in the day.
Superintendent Josh Rasmussen discussed a possible security enhancement.
“We met with our local law enforcement and heard what they learned from Perry,” Rasmussen said.
He said some schools have partnered with law enforcement so that officers would have the ability to log onto a school’s live cameras in the event of a crisis. Rasmussen said the school will continue looking into this possibility. He pointed out that if there were ever a crisis at the school, this could help law enforcement know specifically where to go.
“If it can save just a matter of minutes, sometimes that can be very important,” Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen brought up the school’s aging HVAC units in classrooms and suggested making a plan for gradual replacement so the school doesn’t need to replace them all at once. Randy Carney advocated for gathering prices so the school can begin the process soon.
As part of the consent agenda items, the board approved the hiring of Triston Barnett as a night custodian.
The next regular school board meeting will be a joint meeting of Adair-Casey and Guthrie Center school boards on Oct. 16 at 7 p.m. at Adair-Casey Junior High. The public is welcome.