School board hikes per-pupil funding for school instructional materials

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Superintendent Anthony Orr presents Karen Bobblett, center, and Stacey Chevalier with “Expect the Best” awards with the members of the Nelson County school board (click to enlarge).

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014, 11:45 p.m. — The site-based council at each of the county’s school will have more money for instructional materials after the Nelson County Board of Education voted to restore part of the Section 6 funding it had to cut last year.

The money is allocated to each school based on a per-student figure, which was reduced from $135 to $100-per-student last year due to budgetary limitations. Chief Operating Officer Tim Hockensmith told the board that its vote last week to raise tax revenue 4 percent offered  an opportunity to restore some of the Section 6 funding that was cut last year.

The board voted unanimously to raise the Section 6 funding from $100 to $117 per student for the district’s schools in the coming year. The move will give each school’s site-based council several thousand dollars in additional funds for instructional supplies, materials, instructional equipment and other expenses.

“There’s a lot of things site-based councils can do with that money to improve the education for each and every student,” chairman Frank Hall told the board. “I would like to see us maintain as much financial support we can for each individual student in the classroom.”

“It would be better spent on a project like a Chromebook that we can keep using,” board member Nicky Rapier said, adding that he was glad to be able to give the schools the additional funding. The availability of additional money in future years will have be determined on a year-by-year basis, he said.

Tim Hockensmith discusses budget issues with the board during Tuesday’s school board meeting.

COPIER CONTRACT. The board voted to approve a contract with Ricoh that will replace all the copier machines at all of the school district’s buildings.

Historically, each school has made decisions on it copier machines and printers, Hockensmith explained. The proposed five-year lease-to-own contract will replace all the existing copiers in all the district’s buildings with brand new Ricoh copiers, though there will be fewer of them.

The district’s mix of 88 black-and-white and color copiers will be replaced by 46 new copiers — 18 of which will be color. Nelson County High School’s 11 existing copiers will be replaced by 8 new copiers; Foster Heights Elementary’s 13 copiers will be replaced by 5 copiers; and the 11 copiers at Central Office will be replaced by four new ones.

Hockensmith said the lease-to-own contract is financed by GE Capital at a 5.6 percent interest rate. At the end of the five-year lease, the district will own the copiers. During the lease period, Ricoh will provide full support and maintenance of the copiers.

The contract includes at maximum of 850,000 copies per month, with each additional black-and-white copy costing four-tenths of a cent, each color copy 4 cents.

Each school will be able to track users use of the copiers, which Hockensmith will help schools control copying costs. Schools will pay their share of the lease payment through their site-based allocation. “We’re doing this to try to save them money,” Hockensmith said.

The board also:

— awarded Karen Bobblett, bookkeeper at NCHS, and Stacey Chevalier of the Early Learning Center the district’s “Expect the Best” awards.

— reviewed changes in how the new program review process will factor into the upcoming K-PREP test scores to be released to the public on Monday, Oct. 6.

— heard several New Haven students perform music selections they have been learning;

— approved a request from the district’s Family Resource Centers to apply for United Way grants totaling $8,250.

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