Somers School Board prepares for next year

The Somers School board discussed the preliminary budget for the upcoming school year, requirements for students’ medication and bus routes at their meeting on July 17 at 7 a.m.

The district’s new superintendent Paul Jenkins and district clerk Diane Fetterhoff have been reviewing the preliminary budget for the upcoming school year and so far the district is still in the red. The budget won’t be finalized until their next board meeting in August, but this does mean that cuts will have to be made somewhere.

Jenkins said it was possible to cut $5,000 from retirement and supplies but that still doesn’t balance the budget.

“It’s something to look at before the final budget hearing, budgets are always tight,” Jenkins said. “With the levy not being approved, it certainly isn’t easy.”

The board also discussed compliancy with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountyability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) with district nurse Helyna Kretske at their meeting last week. This topic wasn’t on the agenda, but Kretske came to the board because her changes in hours were not the changes she actually wanted.

Her position was approved for four more hours each week at a previous board meeting, but she wanted those four extra hours added to her current schedule of Monday through Thursday availability rather than adding four hours on Friday. She said the reason for this request was because being at the school when parents drop off their children is important when there are questions about medication or if a student has lice and needs to be sent home immediately.

During the previous school year she had worked on getting the students with medical needs such as diabetes in the habit of coming to her office to take their medication at the same time.

“It took many months to get them to remember when to come and by the end of the year they were awesome for coming in to get testing done,” Kretske said. “It gave them a sense of independence. Of those five kids, there were only two that knew there were other diabetics and they bonded.”

The district currently has medical forms for the parents to sign, but there was concern among the trustees about medication being dropped off at the front desk and whether or not this was a violation of privacy disclosure under HIPAA.

The district will acquire new forms to make sure they are HIPAA compliant with students bringing medication to school before the start of the upcoming school year.

The final item up for discussion during the board meeting was regarding one of the school bus routes needing a new drop-off spot for out of district students.

The reason this route needs altered is because school buses are no longer allowed to have drop-off points on private property since it can mean having several cars parked at that location. A private individual purchased the previous bus stop location last year and allowed the district to use the property until the end of the school year.

If a new bus stop location is not located before the start of the school year, parents of out of district students will have to drive their children to Somers Middle School.

The next Somers School Board meeting is set for Aug. 20 at 6 p.m.