Anonymous donor helps school district with transportation need

The Nov. 16 Somers School District

board meeting was filled with announcements of good news, but the

icing on the cake came from superintendent Casey Love.

He told the group that an anonymous

donor had purchased a van for the school district to transport

meals from Somers Middle School to Lakeside Elementary School. The

van the district had been using recently broke down and there was

no funding for a replacement.

“It’s so neat that we have community

members who are willing to do that for our school,” Love said.

Love used the school’s ALERT

notification system to spread the word that the Somers district was

in a bind. Soon after, he heard from a community member who had

taken some time to find a vehicle he thought would match the need.

Love went and test drove the van and decided it was a good fit, so

the donor paid for it on the spot.

“I was so humbled by the experience

that someone would be willing to do that,” Love said.

When Lakeside Elementary School was

built there was only a small serving kitchen put in the cafeteria,

as the plan was always to make the breakfasts and lunches at Somers

Middle School and transport them to the other school. Last month,

an average of 57 breakfasts and 255 lunches were served at Lakeside

each school day.

The food transporting van is the only

vehicle owned by the Somers School District. The buses are all

privately contracted. So the district was totally without

transportation for getting Lakeside meals.

“I wasn’t sure what we were going to

do,” Love said. “I’m just really glad this worked out the way it

did.”

OTHER BUSINESS

At the board meeting it was also

announced that Lakeside’s enrollment numbers are still growing.

There are 45 more students at the school this year than last year

at this point in the year. The total for Lakeside is now at 395

students, as of Nov. 7. Somers Middle School’s enrollment is down

25 students from last year.

Additionally at the meeting, the

board’s policy committee unveiled its newly drawn up committees

procedures plan. Although it is a basic list of procedures for

members of the board’s various committees to follow, there were no

set guidelines in print prior to this list for the board to

follow.

The procedures include the following:

Each committee will appoint a secretary for the purpose of notes

for a written post; Written report will be forwarded to the

district clerk for inclusion in board packets; The report will

include information and discussion that was presented at the

meeting, as well as recommendations form the committee to the

entire board; No decisions will be made by the committee; No

committee meetings will take place one week prior to the regular

scheduled monthly board meeting to allow notes from the proceeding

to be included in board packets.