NEVC board puts safety first

Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Last Wednesday's meeting of the NEVC School Board saw members approve purchase of Guardian Angel door security devices and go forward with new bus radios, portable defibrillators, parking lot improvements and a preliminary look at next year's budget. The board will review and adopt the 2016-17 budget next Wednesday evening. Clockwise: Bill Alexander, board member; Jeanne Hoagland, board member; Charles Naas, NEVC Superintendent; Robert Fox, board president; David Bruce, board treasurer; Connie Gerster, board member; and Gina Ensor, board member. Johannes Brann/Daily Mail

Nevada Daily Mail

Last Wednesday, following quick approval of the consent agenda, Charles Naas, superintendent of Northeast Vernon County R-1 School District, got a quick start into the board meeting agenda.

"As superintendent, I am here to serve and follow your guidance," said Naas. "But this is one time I strongly encourage you to take action on something. I'm talking about school safety and protecting the children of our schools from an active shooter. And while we may think we're out in the middle of nowhere, that may be why we'd be targeted. The Guardian Angel door security system buys us the time we need till help arrives. Between the two buildings, we'd need just over 30 units with a total cost of around $5,000."

As discussion closed, board member, Gina Ensor looked around the table and asked, "Is there anything else that takes precedence over the safety of our students?"

The board approved the request by unanimous vote.

The board unanimously approved a three-year contract with DSWA of Nevada for the district's annual audit.

"Walker Christian Church is in the process of upgrading their parking lot by adding rock and contacted me to make us an offer," said Naas. "They would put gravel on the area of our side of the road and install a new culvert in exchange for being able to use some of our parking area as an overflow for them, when we are not using the space ourselves."

"They've been good neighbors for a lot of years," said board member, Connie Gerster.

Board members said "Amen" by giving this request their unanimous approval.

Naas then told the board of the ordering of two automated external defibrillators -- one for each school at a total cost of $1,500 -- to replace the existing units that can no longer be serviced.

"We also have 24 programmable radios on order for use by our school bus drivers," said Naas. "We've had a few instances where a child gets on the wrong bus and because we did not have good communication, a bit of panic set in as we were trying to figure out what had happened. The new radios have a range of 20 miles and should help us in a lot of ways."

The agenda item which elicited the most board comment was an offer by Coca-Cola to help with the purchase of a new scoreboard for the high school gymnasium in exchange for a 10-year exclusive sales contract.

"Each school needs a scoreboard but their prices for the pop aren't a bargain," said board member, Bill Alexander. "Besides, the total cost is fairly high and we'd be locked in for 10 years."

"The seniors would be pushed out of selling pop for fundraising," added Connie Gerster.

"Mr. Naas, you are right about needing scoreboards and I thank you for being on the lookout for creative ways of meeting our needs but I think this proposal is way out of hand," said Jeanne Hoagland.

"The next thing I want to bring up is cyber-liability insurance," said Naas. "Several schools in our state have been fooled by authentic looking emails that led to the theft of everything from access to bank accounts to personal information on staff and students."

The board expressed its interest and asked Naas to obtain several bids for comparison next month.

"At present, our monthly phone bill is about $500 but if we'd switch to a voice over internet protocol system, as other area district's are going to, our bill would go down to about $100 per month."

The superintendent was directed to obtain cost information.

"I want to go over the preliminary budget I passed out," said Naas. "A lot of the final numbers for this year and those for next year don't come from the state until the last week of June," said Naas. "But as you can see, our projected revenue will total about $2,364,520 while our expenditures will be $2,326,300, which will leave us a carry over of about $38,220."

"From previous years we are bringing into 2016-17 about a $100,000 carryover," noted Naas. "But we badly need to replace a school bus. At our special meeting for June 22 we'll go over the budget and take time to talk about things such as replacing one of our buses, updating our handbook and applying for grants."

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