PERU – In addition to notifying Peru Elementary School students and staff when there is a fire or fire drill, the newly installed $16,800 fire alarm system has another function.

Superintendent John Turner told School Committee members Tuesday night that he could have the system set up to call a designated number should the furnace in either of the school’s two buildings fail this winter when no one is there.

However, it would cost an extra $850.

“If the power or furnace failed in the middle of Christmas vacation, this could save us,” Turner said.

Director Richard Colpitts agreed. “It makes sense to have it. We’d be foolish not to,” Colpitts said.

Directors then unanimously voted to authorize Turner to spend up to $850 to make it so.

In other business, directors voted 4-0 to not pay for a parent’s remaining contribution for the tuition of a former Peru Elementary School student at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics, a charter high school in Limestone.

Turner said the state would be paying the biggest percentage of the student’s tuition and the youth’s parents were expected to pay the balance, not the School Committee.

“The state doesn’t expect you to do this and you won’t get any reimbursement money if you do. By the state’s logic, they won’t reimburse you because it’s something they bill to the parents,” he added.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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