By Kerry Rahm
krahm@wbcowqel.com
At the Buckeye Central Board of Education meeting Thursday night, much of the board’s discussion centered around the finer points of student drug testing.
On July 14 Superintendent Mark Robinson met with a representative from a student drug testing service. He described the service contract and testing costs to the board.
A 13 panel drug screen would be $29 per student tested. If that panel were to also include an extended screening for alcohol, another $10 would be required. Testing would be done from urine samples and the selection of students to be tested would be random.
The basic panel would test for an array of substances, including amphetamines, opiates, ecstasy, and cocaine, among others.
According to Robinson, alcohol can be found in the system for up to 72 to 80 hours after initial ingestion. Alcohol imbibed on a Friday night could possibly be detected on Monday morning.
Board member Lisa Aichholz, who also met with the representative and who favors the screening plan, outlined some advantages for the board. No specially trained staff would be needed to collect the urine, as the company would send their own employees to collect samples, which are then processed by a lab, and a physician called an MRO (medical review officer) would interpret the results.
Robinson stated that a school of Buckeye Central’s size is looking at approximately $10,000 to cover program costs. The program could be adjusted to test fewer students, and that figure is around the $7,500 range.
Board President Missy McDougal proposed a community wide meeting to be held for teachers, coaches, and parents to discuss student drug testing at some point in the near future.
Robinson concluded by saying that the program is “not something you implement overnight.”
The board of education also welcomed another staff member into the ranks, Deborah Moore, who will be the new middle school intervention specialist in a self-contained classroom.
The auxiliary gym was a topic of discussion yet again, as board members reviewed various options for the configuration of the gym in regards to necessity and price.
Robinson had no financial data at the time of the meeting, but he presented the board with a “design build qualifications” suggestion, “…asking firms that we would like to see… and let them know that we are doing this, they will then send in a request for qualifications, to show us that they are qualified design build contractors.”
This would allow the board to “whittle down contractors” as a factor in deciding which firm to select.
Board member Chris Martin reported that the school’s income tax came in, but the amount was lower than expected compared to last year’s figure.
Treasurer Nancy Ackerman reported that because this is the first month of the new fiscal year, no spending plan is currently in place. She is working on the five year forecast and appropriations for the new school year.
In other matters, school bus routes were approved for the 2016-2017 school year.