Charlo accepts school handbook, activity fees
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CHARLO — At their board meeting on July 20, the Charlo School Board decided to leave the cell phone policy unchanged.
School administrators originally decided to amend the cell phone policy to include specific punishments for students caught with their cell phone on the school’s premises.
But at the meeting on July 20, principals Steve Love and Clair Rasmussen explained the benefits of writing the policy to exclude punishments.
“Don’t worry so much about the fact that it’s a cell phone, worry about what the crime was,” Love said.
The school board association advised the administrators to exclude specific punishments from the policy, focusing on each individual incident, rather than a blanket cell phone punishment.
“The more we have in writing the more a pain in the neck it is,” Love said.
The school board left the punishments for cell phone use to the administration’s discretion.
The school board also approved a $30 activity fee for all students who plan on participating in extra-curricular activities.
A few of the meeting’s attendees expressed concern about the equal distribution of the activity fee to all activities.
“Where does the activity money go?” Judy Shafter inquired.
Rasmussen answered Shafter, explaining that all the activity fees will go into the activities budget, and any request for activity budget funds will have to be requested beforehand.
The administration reassured the school board that any student who couldn’t afford an activity ticket would not be prevented from participation.
Charlo District Clerk Sara Vaughan supplied the school board with a preliminary budget for the 2010-2011 school year.
By not rehiring one non-tenured teacher and not replacing a retired teacher, the district has trimmed nearly $20,000 from its budget. The district also made cuts by eliminating a three-hour custodial position, cutting aids one hour each day and reorganizing the current staff.
A final budget will be discussed on Aug. 10 in the Charlo School Library.
The next regularly scheduled school board meeting will be on Aug. 17 at 7 p.m.
