Cook County Schools head nurse Allison Heeron oversees a busy office. She and Licensed Practical Nurse Kay Borud work regularly with students who have chronic health issues that need monitoring or medication.
School Nurse Allison Heeren, BScN, RN, PHN, LSN, comes well prepared for her position. She has a bachelor’s degree in nursing and experience in hospital and public health nursing and is registered as a public health nurse and licensed as a school nurse in the State of Minnesota. She spoke to the ISD 166 school board on January 17, 2012, saying she wanted to offer some information that might help them make difficult financial decisions as the school struggles with declining enrollment and funding uncertainty.
Heeren presented some statistics on the services her office provides. Forty-two students are currently receiving regular services from the health office, including 16 with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, migraines, or anxiety-related conditions, 14 with asthma, eight with severe food or environmental allergies with the potential for anaphylaxis, and three with diabetes. About 10 students are administered medication there each day.
The health office, with a part-time licensed school nurse and a part-time LPN, has 13 scheduled visits a day and averages about 30 student and staff dropins a day. Common ailments include headaches, stomachaches, minor injuries needing bandaging or ice, nosebleeds, lost teeth, pink eye, rashes, and lice.
Under limited circumstances, the school is able to get third-party reimbursement, such as from Medical Assistance, for its services. This year it is getting about $16,000 in revenue from third party billing. The health office also participates in health screenings, policy development, and classroom education.
Middle/high school report
With class sizes varying greatly with each grade level, scheduling middle and high school classes is becoming increasingly complex. Principal Gwen Carman told the school board the staff is going to have students choose next year’s classes from a schedule that will not show which teachers are teaching which classes. She said this is because choosing classes is “an academic decision.”
Seventeen or eighteen students have been identified as truant, Carman reported. School staff have met with students and parents and are working with the County Attorney’s Office and Cook County Public Health and Human Services on the issue. “There has certainly been some emotion,” Carman said. “I am not saying it wasn’t emotional.” Another area of “ongoing challenge,” according to Carman, is unexcused tardies. Some students are genuinely having trouble getting to certain classes on time, she said, but others might be chatting too much in the halls. If they’re legitimately late for something like talking to a teacher, they can get a pass excusing their tardiness to the next class. A written report to the board from Carman states that much discussion is going on and opinions are differing widely on whether the three-minute passing period is too short.
Carman hoped to start implementing a middle school tardiness consequence plan the first day of the second semester on January 25. “I know initially it’s going to be a big deal,” she said.
Superintendent Beth Schwarz said it’s hard to make more passing time in the middle of the year because it would affect the whole school schedule. A lot of other districts also have three-minute passing times, she said.
Carman said she planned to meet with the Discipline Committee for a mid-year review of new discipline policies in place this year. Some things might need to be tweaked, she said, and some consequences are turning out to be unrealistic to enforce. Carman acknowledged that controlling kids’ attendance and academic progress as they get older and more independent can get harder and harder for parents.
Internet use policy
Superintendent Schwarz expressed appreciation to teacher Mitch Dorr for taking on a district Internet use policy proposal as a graduate school project. She said she would like the district to approve a policy by March. “This is a relatively new issue for school districts to be dealing with,” she said.
Teachers friending students on Facebook has been a growing legal issue, and the recommendation has been to discourage staff from friending any current students on personal Facebook pages except for sites set up for educational use. “It’s a tough policy to write,” Schwarz said.
White on superintendent
School board member Deb White addressed issues raised about Superintendent Schwarz’s job performance in light of a letter of “no confidence” submitted this year by the teacher’s union. She had investigated the circumstances around Schwarz leaving her last position as a principal in the Lakeview school district in Cottonwood.
Lakeview had a fatal bus accident when Schwarz was principal, White said, and it happened when the superintendent had only been there for three months. Schwarz took on a leadership role during what the district board chair told White was a very “trying, …unforgettable, tragic” time.
The accident “inflamed already simmering racial tensions,” White said, and a lot of students lost school time over it. This affected revenue and the budget. White said she had heard Schwarz had been bought out of her previous contract and had been out of work for a year. This was not the case, she said.
Schwarz was not considered a “micro manager” according to the district representative White spoke with. “Our first and foremost concern must be the educational health and welfare of every student in our district,” White said. “He had nothing but high praise for the principal….”
White said she believed Schwarz went “above and beyond the call of duty” after the accident, traveling to visit students in the hospital.
The board discussed its progress on terms of a new superintendent contract. No decisions have yet been made.
Official bank and newspaper
Grand Marais State Bank will continue to be the school’s official banking institution this year, and the Cook County News-Herald will continue to be the school’s legal newspaper.
2012 school board offices
After several nominations for this person and that
person for various school board offices, the ISD
166 school board ended up making the following
appointments at its January 17, 2012 meeting:
Chair: Mary Sanders
Clerk: Terry Collins
Treasurer: Jeanne Anderson
New meeting day and time
The regular meeting day and time has changed. In 2012, the school board will meet the fourth Thursday at 5:00 p.m., with 15 minutes available before each meeting for the public to engage in informal discussion with the board.
Compensation rates
The school board compensation rates will remain the same for 2012, with each member being paid $2,100 for the year and the chair being paid an extra $500. Those in the role of contract negotiators will receive $35 per contract negotiation meeting. “Since we all make about 23 cents an hour for what we do,” said board member Deb White, “I believe what we get is adequate.” If they truly make that little, then they are each spending over 5,675 hours a year on behalf of Cook County’s school children.
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