Nurses to stay in schools

During Thursday night’s McCreary County Board of Education an agreement was reached with Family Health Care of Barbourville, ensuring each McCreary County school would be staffed by a full-time nurse.
The 5-year agreement will retain the nurses as employees of the District, while Family Health Care will cover the cost of salaries and benefits and take over all medical billing.
The District had a previous arrangement with the Lake Cumberland Health District where the nurses that had previously been provided by the health department were hired directly by the School District. Budget cuts forced the LCHD to reevaluate their ability to pay for the nurses salaries after providing the service to school districts for several years previously.
That program included the District receiving the reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid billing on behalf of the students in an effort to cover the cost of the hiring. Superintendent Cash informed the Board that the expected funding did not fully pay the salaries, costing the District about $48,000 last year.
In other actions Thursday night the Board heard an update on the Born Learning program, paid for through a grant from Toyota.
Dr. Jason Creekmore informed the Board the first year of the program went exceptionally well, and funding is in place to continue it through next year,  at the least.
Born Learning focuses on getting children kindergarten ready through a series of workshops aimed at families with children aged four and under. The program provides the families training in helping their children develop the skills needed to help them succeed at an early age.
Anthony Reaves presented the annual Inventory Report and noted nearly all of the District’s property had been accounted for by the end of the school year. Only five technology items still remained to be tracked down, and Reaves felt confident they would be located.
Prior to the meeting a special hearing was held to allow citizens to present comments regarding the District’s Facility Plan. Only one member of the public was on hand to record comments, noting she felt the District needed to do a better job communicating with the public on the need for the plan and the planned nickel tax.
The Board held a special-called session Tuesday evening where members heard a Capstone presentation from Cash, who completed his first year of training under a new program implemented by the Kentucky Department of Education.
The program requires all new superintendents to complete the training under the mentorship of an existing superintendent from another District, and provides rigorous standards for professional growth.
The Board had previously voted to participate in Kentucky’s Superintendent Professional Growth and Effectiveness System, which also implements a standardized evaluation platform, which compliments the principal and teacher evaluation systems already in place.
The Board also performed their annual Superintendent Review at the conclusion of the meeting.
The Board evaluated Cash on two of the seven possible standards – Strategic Leadership and Managerial Leadership.
The first area centers on the superintendent creating conditions resulting in strategically reimaging the mission of the district and setting goals for student achievement and success after graduation.
The second standard calls for the superintendent to ensure the district has processes and systems in place to organize the work of the district and prioritize student learning and safety.
Other potential areas of evaluation included Instructional, Cultural, Human Resource, Collaborative and Influential Leadership.
After a brief executive session to discuss the evaluation, the Board gave Cash exemplary marks on both areas of review.