CCBOE approves cafeteria charge guideline, personnel changes

The Coffee County Board of Education approved several items, including personnel changes, during its regular meeting on Thursday, June 2.

The board approved a change in the lunchroom meal charging procedures. Previously, students charged meals to a principal's account, which was created with personal funds from each principal. This practice keeps a child's meal balance at zero online, even if they have charged meals in the cafeteria.

Jan Hendricks, Childhood Nutrition Program director, said that changing the policy to allow children to charge their meals to a different account would allow for "less error" in lunchroom financial calculations.

"Students, right now, are not allowed to charge at all," Hendricks said. "So, the child's account stays at a zero balance because it can never go negative because we don't allow charges. At the end of the day, the manager prints out a report that has the name of the children that have charged for that day. The next day the same thing happens."

Hendricks said the lunchroom manager eventually has to manually calculate how much each child owes to the principal's account and how much each child has paid back to it.

"While this is happening, that student account stays at a zero balance," Hendricks said. "So, if we have a parent that goes online to look at meal pay, they never see that their child owes money to the principal's account. Particularly, like with a high school child, they think, 'My child's not eating in the cafeteria,' when they really are."

Hendricks said attempts are made to contact the parents, "but sometimes those notes just don't make it home." She said if the charging policy did change, then parents would see if their child is charging meals and have alerts sent to them regarding their child's meal accounts.

"I think it would allow for less error, because we wouldn't have manual calculations," Hendricks said. "More importantly, I think the parents would be more informed about their child's eating habits in the cafeteria."

Hendricks asked for a $20 charging limit for students. She said this amount is equal to "a little over a week" of breakfast and lunch meals in the cafeteria.

She said that if students exceed that charge limit, they would continue to be fed. Their "alternative meal" will only consist of a grilled cheese sandwich, milk and a fruit.

The board also approved joining into the Southeast Alabama Schools Cooperative Joint Purchasing Agreement. This five-year agreement will include any interested school system located in our state district.

According to Superintendent Terry Weeks, state law mandates that substitute and personnel services must be bid out. Chief School Financial Officer Shannon Odom said this agreement could possibly allow the school to receive better prices for these services.

"We're hoping that as a group we can get reduced costs on these substitute services and other personnel services," Odom said.

She said the board currently uses Kelley Services for personnel and substitute services.

Odom said that Enterprise City Schools would be the agent for the agreement.

"Once this bid is awarded, we're not obligated to purchase from this bid," Odom said. "It's just that if we so choose to do so with this agreement, then we are allowed to."

Odom said this bid will include non-certified personnel, such as substitutes, and certified personnel.

In other business, the board approved the following schedule for regular meetings: July 14, Aug. 4, Sept. 1, Oct. 6, Nov. 3 and Dec. 1.

The board also approved the following personnel changes:

Resignations:

Monte Baugh- agriscience teacher at Zion Chapel School;

Employments:

Claire Bailey- early childhood teacher at Kinston School;

McKenzi Grantham- math teacher at New Brockton High School;

Eric Reynolds- social science teacher at New Brockton High School;

Charles Windham- science teacher at New Brockton High School;

Megan Carson- elementary teacher at Zion Chapel School; and,

Transfers:

Chelsi Jones- kindergarten teacher at Zion Chapel School to Pre-K teacher at Zion Chapel School.

Weeks announced that bids packets for work on the school science labs will be ready to be sent out to companies by next week.

He said that work on a tunnel house at Zion Chapel has started. Each school in the system will have at least one tunnel after the Zion Chapel project is completed.

Weeks also announced that Kinston School's gym is another step closer to being finished. The project is expected to be ready for state inspection during the first week of August, Weeks said.

The next regular board meeting will be held on Thursday, July 14, at 5:30 p.m. at the Central Office in Elba.