Dexter R-XI board approves purchase of textbooks, course work

DEXTER — While districts are seeing a shift to online resources over physical materials, the Dexter R-XI School District still expects to spend just under $262,000 on English and math items for the next school year.

Companies are aware of the trend and now make up for it in charges for online materials, Superintendent C.A. Counts said Tuesday during a regular meeting of the board. The board also discussed possible increases to health insurance costs and results of state testing.

Board members approved the purchase of English language arts materials for kindergarten through fifth grade and math for all grades.

Online resources make up about 30 percent of the bill.

“We aren’t physically getting all the textbooks we have in the past,” said Counts. “On the sixth through 12th (grades), because we are doing so much one-to-one (with technology), kids don’t take their books home like they used to. Everything is online.”

Textbook purchases have been decreased, he said, with a classroom set and an additional 30 or so textbooks available for students to checkout and take home in each subject.

Textbook series are purchased on a rotation with input from teachers, according to the discussion.

HEALTH INSURANCE

The district could see higher health insurance premiums in the coming year as it tries to decide whether to stay with its current provider or select a new one.

The district is currently with the Missouri Educators Unified Health Plan, a consortium of schools that Counts said could be experiencing increasing problems. The matter was tabled until the April board meeting as administrators consider other options.

The consortium would need to increase Dexter’s premium rates by 13.5 percent in the next plan year, Counts said.

MEUHP reported it paid $6.1 million more in claims in the last plan year for all of its districts than was collected in premiums. The increase for Dexter would reflect a global increase in rates and an assessment to all districts to help build cash reserves.

Counts said he is afraid there are more problems to come for the consortium, as a number of districts have indicated they are looking at other options. This happened in the past with a previous consortium, before more assessments were made against districts.

“I am really, really fearful that if we stay in, we could be looking at this all over again,” Counts said.

District employees and retirees are currently able to choose from multiple tiers of plans. Two of the tiers are fully paid for employees by the district at $481 per month.

The proposed increase could result in some out-of-pocket costs for Dexter employees, Counts said, which might cause some members to drop the insurance.

STATE TESTING

Dexter scored 95.3 percent of the 120 points available in 2018 on the Annual Performance Report, according to information presented to the board.

This is down slightly from 2016 and 2017, when the district scored more than 98 percent each year.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has indicated it is difficult to compare 2018 to previous years because so many elements in the assessment process changed, Counts said.

In the prior three years, districts could receive a possible 140 points, in addition to testing changes.

The district scored 100 percent in 2018 on its attendance and graduation metrics. It scored the lowest of the figures presented during the meeting in the college and career readiness category, at 91.7 percent.

While overall academic achievement was at 93.5 percent, in a breakdown, English language arts was the lowest at 85.6 percent. Students met 98.1 percent of criteria for mathematics.

In a comparison of Stoddard County schools, other districts saw the following APR percentage scores: Advance, 100; Bell City, 98.3; Bloomfield, 91.7; Bernie, 93.3; Puxico, 88.9; and Richland, 97.9.