The Lennox School District 41-4 held their regular monthly meeting Monday, Feb. 8th.
In the Superintendent’s report Kirk Easton covered some of the legislative bills of interest to education. House Bill 1008, which is intended to restrict access to certain restrooms and locker rooms in public schools, defining that restrooms and locker rooms be used only by the same biological sex. The bill states that if any student asserts that the student’s gender is different from the student’s biological sex, upon written request the student shall be provided with a reasonable accommodation. Easton said the Lennox School District would deal with this issue on a case by case basis.
Other bills mentioned were HB1096, a bill which provides for the exemption of certain students from the requirement to take certain academic assessment tests.
HB1182, the bill to increase the state sales tax was of great interest. Easton said that out of the legislators from District 6 two were opposed, one remained undecided, for District 16 Easton said he thought two legislators were in favor and one against.
SB 5 was mentioned, this bill would revise the procedure to initiate a school district boundary change.
Two other bills on Easton’s watch list were SB131 (establish a target teacher salary and a target teacher ratio and to revise certain provisions regarding education funding) and SB133 (revise certain provisions regarding shared services provided by the state to school districts, the sharing of services of school district employees, the classroom innovation grant program, and educator mentoring and certification reciprocity).
Under action items the board voted to support the self funded option for Northern Plains Insurance Pool (NPIP). Business Manager Angela Arlt explained that she was a voting member on the NPIP board and needed direction of the School Board.
Currently Northern Plains Insurance Pool has over 4100 members, made up of both large and small schools. The pool must become self-funded to keep the small schools in the pool, or those small groups would have to move their insurance to the market place because of changes in healthcare laws.
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