Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

District's budget problems continue

More budget problems could be in store for public schools because of a new federal plan for remediation.

Rick McAfee, superintendent of the Nevada School District, told the Nevada School Board, at its regular monthly meeting Thursday, Sept. 19, of the federal plan.

The idea, he said, will be to test all students from grade 3-12, including the areas of math and science. Those who don't make a specific rating will require remediation.

The fun part is school districts will be mandated to put 20 percent of their operating budget aside for remedial instruction.

McAfee said the remediation doesn't have to be done in the district the student attends school, either. The child's parents or guardian will be given the option on where student will go for the remedial classes.

Nevada, he pointed out, has a remediation program, but it will mean nothing if parents opt to take their children elsewhere.

According to McAfee, 50 schools could be designated this year under the new plan, and as many as 200 schools next year.

"It's a political issue, but it's law," he said.

One of the problems districts will have as far as knowing if they've been so designated, is getting the SAT-9 test scores back in a timely manner.

The tests students took last April haven't been graded and returned to the districts yet.

This, McAfee said, makes it hard for districts to plan and improve their curriculum.

He said the Arkansas Department of Education is responsible for this situation. However, the ADE has changed testing companies and it is hoped the problem will be corrected. But, McAfee pointed out, these companies grade SAT-9 tests from around the nation.

Remediation, he said, should be offered in the summer instead of after school or on weekends. Without the SAT-9 scores, he continued, doing the remedial work in summer will be almost impossible.

Plans are in the works to do some testing electronically (via computer), but school districts have been warned computer problems won't be accepted as any form of excuse. Interestingly, when this was tried, the server being used by the state went down, preventing students from taking the tests, the board was told.

On a more positive note, McAfee said Nevada's test scores in geometry were 37 points higher than state average.

In other business, McAfee told the board of the increase in the district's insurance premium.

Nevada, he said, had been one of 40 districts in the state with a policy underwritten by the school board association. This kept the premiums down.

However, this year, 125 new districts joined the plan, and the underwriter was unable to handle it.

The policies were sent out for bid, with only one company responding.

In the past, Nevada's policy had cost the district $6,700 a year, with a $600 rider for mandatory earthquake coverage.

But, under the new company, the premium will run the district $24,000 annually, with the quake policy rising nearly 1,000 percent to $5,900.

Nevada, McAfee said, is in zone 4 for possible earthquakes. This means the district is less likely to be hit with a quake than districts in zone 1  northeast Arkansas.

The earthquake insurance, he told the board, is a pool of $100 million to be split among all districts in the event a quake hits.

Under the new overall policy, he said, the main building is under a replacement cost scheme based on $70 per square foot to rebuild. This means the 89,644 square foot structure would cost $6.2 million to rebuild. The district's total replacement coverage for everything is $7.7 million.

The board was given little choice but to accept the increase, after being told McAfee had checked around with other insurance companies and found nothing comparable. Most other policies, he said, were more than $30,000 a year.

However, the district will get somewhat of a break, as the insurer carried it under the old rate from July through the end of September. This means Nevada's policy will be $18,986 for the remainder of the year, while the earthquake policy will be $5,408.

The district will be selling three of its old gasoline burning school buses by sealed bid.

The bids must be turned in before Oct. 16. They will be opened at the Oct. 17 board meeting, with the winners named at this time.

Two of the buses, according to Jim Cross, maintenance and transportation director, have been scavenged, while the third isn't too bad.

Once these buses are sold, Nevada's fleet will be entirely diesel vehicles.