Initial report: Student enrollment not as low as expected
Brown County Schools continues to lose students each year to other schools for various reasons, but the initial student enrollment report shows that the district may not losing students as quickly as initially predicted.
At the Sept. 19 Brown County Schools Board of Trustees meeting, Superintendent Laura Hammack reported that the district only lost 18 students since last school year. The count taken on the official student count day last month was 1,768; last year’s enrollment was 1,786.
That number is not certified yet, as corporations work to claim students who may have moved during the school year, Hammack said.
“It’s much better than what we were worried we would see,” she said.
“Commonly, what happens … is we lose some more (by the time the numbers are certified), so I would expect this is optimistic — maybe down five or maybe holding, but you usually don’t ever go up.”
The financial impact of losing students is about $6,000 per child, she added.
The district had originally predicted having 1,746 students this school year.
“We’re really pleased with these numbers. The state had us forecast the same, so it’s just looking better than what we had thought at this point in time. I think all of the work we’ve done to get to this point, to make sure our budget is getting to where it needs to be, has paid off for us absolutely,” Hammack said.
District plans to help fund teacher raises
On Sept. 15, the contract bargaining process between Brown County Schools and the Brown County Educators Association officially began for this school year.
At the Sept. 5 school board meeting, Superintendent Laura Hammack said the district will use $120,000 to pay for certified staff raises as part of that process.
Last year, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced that the state would pick up 2 percent of the 7.5 percent school districts had been paying into the teacher retirement fund, in hopes that that extra 2 percent would then go to certified staff raises, Hammack said.
For Brown County, that 2 percent equaled around $120,000.
“It is our plan that we use those dollars in the bargaining process so that we can deliver those dollars back to our certified staff members,” she said.
The money will be used to give a raise to anyone paying into the teacher retirement fund.
Secured school safety grant received again
Brown County Schools has received a secured school safety grant for the second year in a row to continue paying for a school resource officer for Brown County Schools.
Superintendent Laura Hammack announced the district had received $80,000 in grant funding during the Brown County Schools Board of Trustees Sept. 5. Last year, the district received $100,000, but it did not request that much this year.
New school resource officer Greg Duke was introduced at the Sept. 19 meeting. He is based at Brown County High School, but responds to any school if needed. He replaces Michael Rogers, who left the Brown County Sheriff’s Department to become a conservation officer with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
“This grant has become quite competitive. It used to be you could just apply and kind of get the dollars, but it’s rather competitive now. I was really happy that what we asked for we got,” Hammack said.
Changes made to the state’s school safety grant program resulted in some school districts seeing funding cut in half, with others receiving double last year’s money, according to the Associated Press.
Bus stop arms to go out on State Road 46
Drivers on State Road 46 will notice school buses putting out their stop arms for stops in the morning and afternoon, after a concerned bus driver approached district leaders about not using a stop arm for stops on the state highway.
Two different buses pick up students on State Road 46 West and East. “In many places on 46, there is plenty of room for the buses to pull all the way over the white line, stop the bus and pick up the students on the side where they are picking up,” Superintendent Laura Hammack said during the Brown County School Board of Trustees meeting Sept. 5.
The district does not have students cross 46 to get on or off buses.
The Indiana Department of Education Department of Transportation’s standard of practice when stopping to pick up or drop off students on a state highway is to move a school bus all the way over on the other side of the white and not throw out the stop arm to pick students up.
Hammack said the reason for that practice is because drivers are traveling at high speeds on the highway and if they are not paying attention, the drivers, especially semi drivers, may not be able to stop in time to avoid a collision.
“We had a driver express concern about that. She was not comfortable with not throwing her stop arm and wanted that stipulation to be reconsidered,” Hammack said.
Roger Cline, the director of BCS transportation, had a representative from the IDOE’s department of transportation come and drive the route in question. “(He) said that the buses could get over, that was under the law and is practicable to be able to do that. But he said it’s local policy as far as what you want to do,” Hammack said.
The driver had said she did not feel she could get over all the way in two spots on her route. “She drives the route every day, so we wanted to take that into consideration,” Hammack said.
The suggestion from IDOE was to instead have the bus go over both the lane and the berm before throwing the stop arm out. “That’s not an illegal practice, but it just needs to be a local decision,” Hammack said.
The Brown County Sheriff’s Department was also involved in the discussions and supported allowing the driver to put her stop arm out at stops.
To avoid drivers getting confused, Hammack said both bus drivers on 46 will put their stop arms out now. Traffic will be stopped both ways now.
Hammack said the district is also looking into building a bus shelter for Forest Hills Apartments to help keep students safe as they wait to get on the bus.
“What could happen now, if you’re not paying attention, we could have a bus stopped, picking kids up at Forest Hills and you could get folks coming in and pulling into Forest Hills that aren’t paying attention. We just don’t really like that intersection much at all,” Hammack said.
“Improvements I think will be coming. I would support an investment there, helping in kind of a capital way to improve that altogether.”
