School board amends rules on attendance, property gifts

Policies concerning attendance and accepting gifts of personal property were top policy changes at Tuesday's school board meeting.

"This is another slight revision that authorizes superintendents to accept gifts of personal property as long as they're consistent with the district's mission," Sidney schools superintendent Jay Ehler told the board. "So what you need to come up with tonight is a particular dollar amount."

For example, Ehler suggested he get board approval for any gifts he accepts worth $10,000 or more. This policy change was at the request of the school attorneys, but it isn't based on a mandate or statute.

"Is the reasoning for it that there may be a conflict of interest?" school board member Doug Means asked.

That could be a possible reason, Ehler said.

"There are also situations where someone gives you a gift that you really don't want," said school board member Steve Mattoon.

If the school were given a high value gift, then it would have to pay taxes on that gift.

In the version of the policy currently in place, the board is supposed to approve any gifts, no matter how small.

"The problem they've had with superintendents now is obviously, if somebody wants to give us a $300 car to our auto shop, the boards don't always want to have to approve something like that," Ehler said.

Mattoon suggested a value of $500 or $600 dollars for approval.

"If I decide to donate brand new computers to the school, is that gonna fall in this?" board member Randy Flamig asked.

Flamig expressed concern that when businesses donate items to the school, which happens on a regular basis, that the board would have to approve it every time. Cabela's donates to school fairly often and if the board has to consider all of those gifts, it will increase the meeting times tremendously.

For example, Ehler pointed out that Cabela's donated around $3,000 worth of mulch to the school around the time of its shareholder meeting that was held at the high school this summer. The suggestion of donating mulch came up quickly and if Ehler was required to run it by the board beforehand, he would have had to turn it down.

"I just accepted it because they wanted it there for their meeting," Ehler said. "It was gonna be an improvement for us."

The board generally agreed that a higher amount would be preferable to save trouble.

"I think $10,000 would be fine," Flamig said. "That's trusting you to make those decisions that are spur of the moment."

The board approved the policy with any gifts valued at more than $10,000 to be approved by the board.

Sub: Absent minded

Another policy change regarded excessive absenteeism.

"It seems like there's always something with attendance going on," Ehler said.

One part of the new attendance policy would allow a parent to pull her child out of kindergarten if she decides that the child isn't really ready for school. This rule only applies to students who won't turn six years old before January 1 of the new school year. It would allow those children to be taken out of school without being submitted to attendance policies.

"Evidently what has happened at times is that people will send a five year old student to school and they get a month or two into school and decide, I don't think he or she is ready and they'll decide to take them out," Ehler said.

Then the schools would be obligated to report the absent child to the county attorney under Nebraska's excessive absenteeism law.

The board also decided Tuesday on what version of the excessive absenteeism policy to enact.

Ehler suggested the version of the attendance policy which requires the school to report a student to the county attorney after 20 absences if any of them are unexcused. Under this policy, the school would take some sort of action to compel attendance after five unexcused absences. The school previously didn't take any action until a student had 10 unexcused absences.

Sometimes a student can rack up five absent days pretty quickly if the child is truly sick, Ehler said. On the other hand, if a student has history of missing too many days, after five the school can take care of the situation more quickly. Talking to parents is a first step.

"To me, I see some good and bad either way," Ehler said. "Ten was nice because you don't have to act quite so soon."

Sub: Kindergarten policies

The board approved the new kindergarten attendance policies as well as the excessive absenteeism policy.

If a child turns five between Aug. 1 and Oct. 15 of that school year, the school used to be able to decide whether or not to allow that child to take an assessment and be enrolled. Now, if a parent shows interest, the school board must allow the child to take an assessment and enroll if that test is passed.

The cut off date for Sidney schools used to be July 31 no matter what. If a child was not five years old before this date, he or she would not be allowed to attend kindergarten.

"We just wanted it to be cut and dry," Ehler said.

Now, if a parent comes forward with a child that turns five within those date ranges, the child must be assessed.

"We have to give them a kindergarten readiness test," Ehler said. "And if they're ready, they go to kindergarten."