The Eastern Pulaski School Board weighed in on a few proposed policy changes Monday. Superintendent Dan Foster said a change in state law gives the corporation a few options when it comes to criminal history checks for employees. Board members said they want the corporation to cover the cost of each employee’s regular background check, as well as an expanded child protection report.
The state is also requiring school corporations to formalize their policies for student lunch payments. “It’s a self-supporting fund,” Foster said, “but you can’t continually let people get $25, $30, $35 in the hole and still let them buy a regular lunch plus a la carte items.” School officials stress that alternate meals will be available for students who don’t have enough money in their accounts, and there are programs in place to help students in need.
A slight change may also be coming to Eastern Pulaski’s student transfer policy. Foster said the state now lets school corporations restrict transfers based on a student’s attendance record. “If a student is coming from a neighboring school, we can get their transcripts and look,” he said. “If there’s been 93 days of school and they’ve missed 27, we don’t have to take them anymore. And it has to be reasonable, and I suppose that’s going to eventually become a question of, ‘In whose opinion?'”
Policies for reporting child abuse and neglect, and for distributing teacher appreciation grants, are also getting updates. Final approval is expected during next month’s school board meeting.
