School Board reduces transportation fees for teams/organizations

by Matt Hughes

J-E News Editor

Webster County sports teams and organizations received a boost on Monday night when the Webster County School Board addressed the issue of transportation.

Until that meeting the districts policy was to charge $1.06 per mile (the board paid an additional 30 cents per mile) plus the regular hourly rate of the bus driver for any extra curricular activities. The pay range for Webster County bus drivers runs from $9.35 and hour to $11.56.

The new policy, adopted by a unanimous vote will now charge organizations only 50 cents per mile , but the cost of the driver will be raised to $13.00 across the board.

One of the reasons stated for the raise in the driver’s rates were that many of the sports teams had started providing only one-way transportation to games so they didn’t have to pay a driver to sit and wait until the end. Some drivers who had been pulled off of their normal routes to drive to the game were actually losing money.

So how do the numbers actually break down? Under the old system if a sports team took a trip to Hopkins County Central High School, they would pay approximately $72.02 in fuel for the round trip (67 miles). If they used a bus driver for four hours the cost would run between $37.40 and $46.24 for a total ranging between $109.42 to $118.26.

Looking at the same trip with the new fees, the team would pay $33.50 for the fuel and $52.00 for the driver (at $13 per hour) for a total of $85.

While this does not seem like a significant decrease (between $23.92 and $32.76), in an environment where all of the sports teams and organizations are competing for the same booster dollars, this could make a huge difference by the end of the season. It also allows the teams to know what their expected cost is when they schedule games.

In other business, Marcus Highland with engineering firm Clotfelter-Samokar addressed the board on changes to the middle school renovation project. Demolition is already underway, and the contractor (Princeton Lumber Company) expects to break ground next week.

“We are all on schedule with the contractor’s schedule,” said Highland.

One issue that concerned the board was charges dealing with a boiler in the middle school. The contractor called in Air Source Technology to inspect the boilers, and discovered asbestos. The contractor took steps to get the asbestos removed. The total cost of the testing and repair was around $18,000.

“Change orders on the project must come before this board, but you told us that repairs are already underway,” said board chairman Jeff Pettit.

Highland explained that due to regulations the contractor had no choice but to repair the boiler for work to continue. And $10,000 of the $18,000 was already built into the plan as a contingency for just this situation.

“I want you to understand that we are not necessarily questioning you,” Pettit told Highland. “It’s just that any changes that come before this board will require a little explanation so that people now why and what is going on.”

At the request of superintendant Dr. James Kemp, board attorney Brandi Rogers presented the board with proposed changes to the district’s Class IV Violation Procedures. Class IV Violations are ones serious enough that the only options are expulsion or alternative school.

Currently the board hears all Class IV Violations. The changes presented by Rogers would instead send these violations to a district level administration committee, along with a recommendation from the principal. If the committee deemed the violation series enough to warrant expulsion, the student would then meet with the board, otherwise they would be sent on to the alternative school.

“I don’t have a problem with what Brandi brought us, she was just doing what she was asked,” said board member Tim McCormick. “I have a problem with allowing the administration to decide if it gets an expulsion hearing or not. The reason we started hearing all of these was because of favoritism.”

He explained that several years ago the board started getting a lot of reports about students not being treated equally when it came to violations, so they decided at that time that all Class IV violations would automatically get a hearing.

“I understand the point Mr. McCormick is making,” said Petitt. “To a point I agree, but I don’t have time nor the desire to hear all of these cases unless there is a need for expulsion. Do you want to hear them all?”

“No, but I think that is the only way to make sure we treat everyone fairly,” McCormick said.

“Just as we give students second chances as a board, I think the administration deserves a second chance,” said Mickey Dunbar. “We have competent administrators in place. I think they should be given the chance to review these violations. I would rather be proven wrong in the future than to not give them a chance because of something that happened in the past.”

In the end the board instructed the attorney to meet with Dr. Kemp and Mark Spainhoward of the alternative school to review the policy further.

WCHS assistant principal and athletic director Matt Bell addressed the board about a proposed concession stand for the Webster County Soccer team. At a previous meeting Bell had presented the board with a rough outline of the building plan, but they requested more concrete figures on how much was needed. The boosters have provided the building, at a cost of roughly $2,500 but are now in the need of an additional $13,655 to get the structure up to health code. 

This time the board suggested that the team see if the boosters could raise an additional $5,500 now that the transportation costs have been lessened, and then come back to them. There was no vote taken, but several board members suggested they would be willing to match the team $8,000.

“I have a hard time telling the soccer team no when we just gave the band $10,000 for instruments and football $3,000 for helmets,” said Dunbar. “I think we should support all of our teams and organizations. Based on what we’ve done, we’ve set a precedence.”

“If you ask me for money to keep kids safe, I’m never going to turn you down,” said McCormick. “We gave the football team money for safety equipment. And the band is arts and humanities. We don’t do enough arts and humanities as it is.”

Officials reported that the fiber-optic network was now operational in all of the district’s schools but Sebree, and that school will be up before the end of the week. The final step will be connecting to the bus garage.