BETHEL — Potential state aid losses upwards of $400,000 were outlined Monday, Feb. 7, in the superintendent’s report to the SAD 44 board of directors.
State Aid for Maine School Districts is determined through a series of measures, one of which is meeting certain thresholds for the number of “disadvantaged students” a district serves. Typically, the State of Maine uses a student’s Free/Reduced lunch status to determine if that student is “economically disadvantaged”.
For this last fiscal year, Telstar did not have enough students qualified for free and reduced lunch to retain the same level of state aid as previous years, Superintendent Dr. David Murphy explained.
He noted that this is a preliminary report and there are other methodologies to deem students within the district as “economically disadvantaged” and subsequently recover more state aid funds for the school district.
Murphy said his team is working diligently at providing the required paperwork to the State in an effort to secure those funds.
In other business, the board discussed the creation of a precautionary school policy allowing for the administration of Narcan, a nasal treatment for an opioid overdose emergency, by trained school nurses.
As the school district takes advantage of COVID-related federal funds, it has been decommissioning older model laptops and replacing them with newer models to help students as they continue to contend with sporadic bouts of remote learning, said Murphy.
SAD 44 will once again be selling off its older stock of laptops to the community for $150 each, with a maximum of two laptops available for purchase per person, he said.
Currently there are 200 laptops available all of which have been serviced and are in working order. Sales of these computers will be used to fund the districts’ future investment in technology.
The Superintendent concluded his report to the board with a forecast for the 2023 school year calendar to be completed by April vacation and by acknowledging five teachers from SAD 44 who have received their accreditation from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
The Board unanimously approved Tracy Morin to fill the long vacant position of 5th grade teacher at Woodstock Elementary for the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year.
She will be returning to the district after several years working for SAD 17 with a plethora of experience and glowing reviews from her former coworkers.
The second motion, also unanimous, was to approve the final iteration of a policy that will allow for remote participation of the public and School Board members for future meetings.
The next school board meeting is scheduled for March 7 at 6:30 p.m. in the Telstar Library. More information on committee meetings, minutes and remote participation links can be found on the district website.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
