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School's out, but the work continues

school workers have a busy summer ahead of them

By Britt Combs | The McDowell News

Published: June 22, 2009

While students are away from public schools on traditional calendar, the work does not stop. In fact, more work is getting crammed into fewer days.
While school is out of session for summer break, 11-month and 12-month employees are working four days a week instead of five. To get the requisite 40 hours in, most workers are working from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Both the schools and the administration offices are closed on Friday.
This switch is part of both a short-term cost-saving measure as necessitated by the state budget crisis and by McDowell schools' long-term energy savings plan, administered by Energy Education Inc.
Energy Education Inc and the school system's "energy czar" Dean Buff will be reporting on the first full year of the program in August, but Superintendent Ira Trollinger told The McDowell News that he expects the system to have realized savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the year.
Innovative measures are being sought to save money for the schools. Although McDowell County could theoretically raise the sales tax to fund the schools, that would require a referendum. At this month's meeting, School Board members discussed asking the county to look into a sales tax increase.
But both County Commissioner Andy Webb and County Manager Chuck Abernathy told The McDowell New that no one from the schools had mentioned it to them and that such measures had been unsuccessful wherever they had been tried. Their feeling, they said, was that the county's people would not support the idea.
The School Board is currently doing what it can to raise money, including selling off unwanted land in the county. A plot of land in Nebo, with a view of Lake James, has been determined to be of no use to the school system.
At approximately 1.25 acres, the land is the former site of a segregated public school for black students, according to Trollinger. A neighbor, he told the board, had expressed interest in adding the site to his land holdings.
The board's new lawyer, Dean Shatley, was instructed earlier this month to negotiate an offer from the Nebo gentleman. The offer will then be advertised for a short time, as required by law, to see if it can attract an upset bid. If not, the offer will stand and the board must accept or decline.
Shatley and Chris Campbell left their former employers, Roberts & Stevens, last month and took many of Roberts & Stevens' school system clients with them. The contract was awarded to Roberts & Stevens earlier this year when their offer was preferred by most board members over long-time board attorney, Dameron, Burgin, Parker & Jackson.
In May, Campbell and Shatley announced to the School Board their intention to go on their own. At Trollinger's recommendation, the board agreed to take on their services. No one from Roberts & Stevens or from Shatley and Campbell's new law firm would comment for this story.
The Day Treatment Program, which addresses mental health issues students may face, is changing.
The system is changing the way it provides therapists' services at the AEC. Exceptional Children's Services Director Chuck Aldridge explained that in previous years the school had contracted with a local mental health services clinic to bring therapists to the AEC campus, but that, beginning this fall, the school will contract with individual therapists and bill Medicaid directly.
About 16 or 18 students, he estimated, would be eligible to receive such services, which could devote as much as half the school day to therapeutic activities. The services are for those students who, for mental health reasons, might not be able to safely attend regular classes in a conventional public school setting.
"I think Union County and Rockingham are doing this way," Aldridge said. "We wanted to make is available to more students who need it," and by contracting therapists directly, it is hoped that the program will be able to grow more efficiently.
This kind of therapy at school is vital, he added, because the availability of mental health services in North Carolina is declining. Aside from Medicaid, the program has been and will be paid for through exceptional children's funding.