By Annabeth Miiler,
ShowMe Times Editor

Students in the Dexter Public School District will pay an extra dime for lunch next year thanks to a federally mandated increase in school lunch rates.

The Dexter Board of Education met in a noontime meeting this week, and reluctantly approved a dime increase per lunch in both the elementary schools and high school for the 2011-2012 school year.

“We are basically under new federal mandates to raise our lunch prices,” Superintendent Dr. Thomas Sharp told the board. Even though board members voted earlier this year not to raise lunch prices for the upcoming year, Sharp said the district is mandated by the federal government to raise the cost to students to remain in compliance with the school food program.

The change will affect the lunch program only; the cost for breakfast will remain as previously established. The cost of lunch will be raised 10 cents across the board – to $1.50 in the elementary schools and $1.60 at the high school.

Sharp presented to the board new job descriptions for each employed position in the district for the upcoming academic year.

“Dr. (Kim) Flowers and I ‘hit the ground running’ a year ago, wanting something better,” Sharp said. He told board members that the previous job descriptions were so old they were stored on a “floppy disc on an Apple 2E.”

“Dr. Flowers and I think it’s real important to have a good job description with the contracts,” he said. “She’s been going through (the current job descriptions) and we’ve been getting samples.”

Flowers said that changes were minimal, except for an “essential functions” section that has been added to most of the existing descriptions.

“We have done some tweaking, because there are some jobs that are no longer existing in the district, there are some jobs we’ve added,” Flowers said. She said her research showed that employees now had to be informed of every sensory issue that might be in a school setting. “Apparently you can’t assume too much anymore.”

The board approved the changes and the new descriptions will be given to each employee as a part of the contract process.

Sharp presented to the board a bid for repairs to the gymnasium floor at the high school. The floor has some dangerous places where the boards have warped due to a moisture problem. The source of the moisture is unknown, and steps have been taken to try to find the source of the problem. However, Sharp said in the meantime the floor needs work to make it safe.

“He will get it fixed so that it is safe and then he will monitor it,” Sharp said. “This may be the last time we can do something with it until the source of the problem is found."

Sharp said that the gym is not being air-conditioned this summer, and the warping has apparently subsided.

“Until we get a source determined we are not going to turn the air conditioning on,” he said. The hypothesis is that the air conditioning could be the source of some of the problems. “The floor is not safe; it’s hazardous. We just have to do whatever we can to make it safe.”

The contract for the repairs to the high school gym floor was awarded to Jarrett Enterprises, Inc. from Cabool, Mo.

In end-of-fiscal year business, the board:

• Approved the transfer of enough funds from the General Fund to the Special Revenue Fund to bring the Special Revenue Fund balance to zero;
• Approved the transfer of $388,000 from the General Fund to the Capitol Projects Fund;
• Approved the tentative budged from Fiscal Year 2012 (2011-2012 school year). A revised budged will be presented to the board in December or January.

In other business on Tuesday, the board,

• Agreed to revise the limit for capitol outlay purchases to $250 from the current $1,000. Sharp said this minimum allows for flexibility in the coding of purchased equipment;

In executive session, the board:

• Accepted resignations from Jennie Dachs as a Title I aide and Tila Hubrecht as nurse;
• Approved the transfer of Jim Hutchcraft to become the district’s head custodian;
• Employed bus driver Shane Mallard for additional employment as maintenance personnel.