ROGERS — School Board members approved increased involvement in a special education consortium and tabled a request for more office space at the Benton County School of the Arts meeting Tuesday.
The $60,954 Western Benton County Special Education Consortium agreement will give the school access to a Medicaid clerk to help families file, an administrative assistant to pull reports, a Local Educational Agency supervisor and a special education transition coach for the high school and continue their consulting teacher agreement. The partial week positions add up to 95 percent of a single full-time job. All five jobs will be contracted through the Gentry School District and the consulting teacher is the only one who will actually visit the school.
The school currently has an agreement with Gentry for a twice-weekly consulting teacher and that will not change.
AT A GLANCE
School Board Meeting
On Tuesday, the Benton County School of the Arts’ board approved:
- A $9,793 contract extension to Paul Smith for lawn care at both campuses
- An $83,958 contract extension to Alliance Maintenance for maintenance at the kindergarten through eighth-grade campus
- A $60,954 agreement for special education services and Medicaid filing with the Western Benton County Special Education Consortium.
Source: Staff Report
Those services will not come from the school’s core budget, said Superintendent Paul Hines on Tuesday. All but about $3,300 will be absorbed by the school’s Title VI B and Arkansas Medicaid Administrative Claiming program money, Hines said.
“You couldn’t put this in a PE teacher or another math teacher,” he said. “This is all from restricted funds.”
Hines’ third appeal to add leased offices to house three administrative positions was rejected. Space at the kindergarten through eighth-grade campus is at a premium, Hines said. The school is adding a one-day a week counseling position and a instructional math/literacy facilitator at the campus in the fall. Leasing offices at Halstead Circle would cost an estimated $23,000 to set up and $14,800 for the first year’s rent and operation, according to a handout in the board packet.
Jim Keast, a board member, said the one full-time addition did not justify the expense and board members asked about alternatives.
In their last meeting, the board voted to end the school’s kindergarten through eighth-grade Spanish program. The former Spanish classroom will host Title I and English as a second language programming in the fall. The current Title I room was designed as a conference room, something the campus is without, Hines said. Without an additional office, the instructional facilitator would use the conference room.
Members asked about space at the high school campus and Hines said he did not want to take a classroom for offices from the growing high school. Startup expenses, such as additional office furniture and computers, would be the same no matter where the school added offices, Hines added. The proposed first-year expenses had been pared down. In February renovation of the office space, other setup fees and the first year’s rent totaled $46,336; in May’s proposal it totaled $37,947.
Tony Beardsley, a board member, said he would be more comfortable approving new office expenses once scheduled capital improvements, such as a $100,000 roofing project at the high school, had been bid.
“It’s just the unknowns at this point that make me want to hold off,” Beardsley said.
The proposal was tabled.