Twin Rivers school board addressed the allowance of COVID absences for teachers and staff at a board meeting Wednesday.
The board voted unanimously to allow an absence of a single five-day consecutive period for a positive COVID test, as long as the test was administered by a health care professional.
“If we saw an increase or cases started rising in the area, we could always come back and revisit that,” said Superintendent Rob Brown.
The board voted unanimously to raise the salary rate by almost 19% for those holding full-time aide positions in the district.
“We’re in a situation where you could actually sub for a year and make more than an aide,” said Brown.
The total cost of the proposed raises for the district will be $45,950, according to Brown’s figures.
There was a brief discussion about an existing greenhouse structure that still has a usable frame. The school plans to repair and rebuild the structure utilizing the existing material for the upcoming school year.
“Aviation classes have blown up in popularity, the past two or three years,” said Brown.
Twin Rivers currently offers three basic classes in aviation.
“Mr. Rathel had asked about looking into basic flight simulator equipment for the curriculum and it comes with the 32-inch screen panels, the gauges, the total is $5,000,” said Brown, adding, “But here’s the good news, last year you approved out of ESSER 2, $20,000 for multimedia classes and he’s got $5,500 left that he didn’t use.”
In a unanimous vote, the board approved reallocating last year’s remaining ESSER funds to cover the cost of the simulation equipment.
Bruce Goodrich attended the meeting and has volunteered his time and labor to assist in improvements to the Fisk campus. According to the discussion, there will be minor disruption to school traffic during the execution of these improvements, however, the changes will allow for better traffic flow of daily drop-off and pick-up lines. Due to the donation of time, labor and materials the total cost to the school for the improvements was said to be around $600.
The board is set to meet again at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20.