Oskaloosa School Board Holds Special Meeting July 15th
Oskaloosa, Iowa – Only a few days after their regular meeting, the Oskaloosa School Board met for a special meeting at Noon on Friday, July 1.
Oskaloosa Community School Superintendent stated that their lease for the copiers they currently have will be ending this fall. With the implementation of the one to one laptop program, the district was looking for ways to cut costs. They will be utilizing Papercut Software to keep track of all printing, either by student or teacher in order to watch carefully how much paper and toner that is being used. They will be replacing the 80 individual class printers currently at the Elementary School with a larger Lexmark printer, as the toner costs for this unit will be less than the smaller printers. The cost for the Lexmark printers is projected to be nearly $3500.00 each, with a total of 5 to be purchased for the district. Larger office printers will need to be paid for over time.
The total of this agreement for the software and the new Lexmarks totaled $34,547.00. There was also a secondary agreement for the lease/purchase from Infomax with a monthly cost of $1,937.93. Over sixty months, the payments would total $116,275.00. The first motion on the $34,547.00 for the software and Lexmark printers passed unanimously. The next item was the approval of the lease/purchase agreement from Infomax Office Systems for 4 district copiers in an amount not to exceed $116,275.00. This also passed unanimously.
Oskaloosa School Board held a special meeting on July 15th, 2011
The next item the School Board tackled was the approval of the Master Contract for the 2011-20112 school year with the Oskaloosa Support Staff Association. The contract allows for 3% and 3.25% for next year. The agreement is for 2 years. The Oskaloosa School Board passed the new contract with unanimous approval.
The Board approved the Milk Bid for the 2011-2013 school years with Anderson Erickson Dairy to a unanimous vote.
The board then took up revisions to the computer loan agreement for the 1:1 Laptop program.
The discussion is turned towards the computers being the responsibility of homeowners if the laptop were to become damaged once it leaves school property. They looked at amending the verbiage approved at the June meeting to emphasis “to the parents and students that “if something does happen to it, not only do you notify the parents, but the school, and the police but also your property insurance agent. Also enforce the thought that we are not going to allow students to give it to other people to use.”
Superintendent Russ Reiter stated, “The computer is the students computer and we know that when computers go home to households, we hope that Mom, Dad, little brothers, little sisters don’t start getting their fingers on it. We know that can happen. What we’re trying to impress upon the parents is that it’s for educational purposes only, it’s for the school, and that if something happens while it is at home, we want to make sure we go back and do our investigation that it is because of something the student happened to be doing, if it happened to drop on the floor, that type of thing, versus Mom, Dad, little brother sister having their hands on it and throwing it around the house. It’s a valuable piece of equipment and the students need to take care of it. We’ll explain that to the parents, that it’s the students computer, their the one’s who should be using it.”
One of the board members asked if the computers will be filtered. Reiter explained, “Yes, even when they go home, there will be filters that will protect whoever is at home, even if their personal wireless is not filtered.” He went on to explain “Kids are kids, and people know how to get around some of those things sometimes. If something does go on the computers that not suppose to, and we find it, and we can, we have that ability, then of course they will have to pay the consequences.”
The next question to come about with the laptops concerned the possibility that parents would not have homeowners or renters insurance, who would have to pay for damages then to the laptop. The school will have a budget to help with some of the cost of repairs for families that may not have the means to pay for repairs. Reiter then went on to say, “The parents need to know they are responsible for that computer, so we hope that most of them either check out their homeowners insurance.” Reiter then explained that if the parents don’t have insurance to cover the repairs of the computer, the district will sit down with the parents to work out some sort of payment plan. “If for some reason they [parent] cannot pay for it [damaged computer] we won’t let the student take the computer home again, or a computer home. They’ll have to go to the student help desk pick one up, and then use that for the day and then return it at the end of the day.”
Reiter explained that several companies have come forward to offer extra insurance to parents to help cover the costs of the broken laptop. “Parents can take out a insurance policy with either a $50.00, $100 or $250.00 deductible and it may cost you [parent] nineteen dollars a month for the entire year, or fifteen dollars a month, it’s not very expensive.”
Reiter further explained the repair costs for parents as, “With our particular plan what we’re saying, we’ll go ahead and cover that [repair] but the first time your [child] breaks, something happens to it, it’s?” Reiter was asking Vink for clarification. Vink stated “I think it’s $100.00 then $200.00.” Board members agreed that the fee was “very reasonable.”
Parents or guardians who may qualify for reduced or free lunches will still be responsible for damages to the laptop. Reiter explains, “Now we have looked at the legal side, even if there is damage, they can’t opt out of that. So if there is a hundred dollar charge for damage to the computer, that’s not part of that quote free reduced situation where they don’t have to pay.” Reiter further explained that there are expenses if they are damaged.
Parents will have the right to opt out of the laptop program, and the student would just check a laptop in and out for the day.
Finally, the board hired Kyle Braundmeier as the new middle school athletic director.
Board adjourned until it’s next regular meeting.
