The Brownwood ISD held their regular monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees on Monday evening.
One discussion topic at today’s meeting was a report submitted by BISD School nurse Helen Lacy regarding the H1N1 virus, commonly called the swine flu.
Lacy recently attended a conference regarding H1N1 and brought some new information regarding the virus along with some possible suggestions regarding how schools can respond.
Lacy explained that when the virus was first in the media last year it was understood that it had a high mortality rate. Since that time, the CDC has had time to study the virus and determine that H1N1 is simply a type A influenza.
Lacy said, “Because it is a new flu, a lot of people do not have immunity against it, and the flu vaccine for it is not quite ready yet. It is supposed to come out the first of October.”
The first batch of the vaccine will be specifically used for kids and young adults ages 5-25 and then target other high risk populations and then on to the general public.
As far as precautions against spreading the flu in schools, Lacy said that the district already has many of the suggested procedures in place. One such procedure is regarding younger students and teaching them to wash their hands on a regular basis and helping them do so throughout the day.
The second procedure already in place was to isolate students who are sick by keeping kids with fever in the nurses office until they can be picked up and asking parents to keep students home until they do not run a fever for a 24 hour period.
The school may consider in the near future, once the vaccine is released, offering the vaccinations at school to be administered by the Health Department. The advantage of this is that it would get more students immunized with parental consent. The disadvantage of this is the possibility of a student having a reaction to the vaccine, although these kind of reactions are rare.
No decision has been made at this time regarding the possibility of on campus vaccinations and the Health Department is still in the planning stages & is having a meeting with the area schools tomorrow to offer more details.
In Other School Board Business:
-Trustees approved the purchase of a SUV for $31,955 for use by the district.
-Trustees approved a resolution to appoint county extension agents as adjunct faculty members so students can be counted “in attendance” when participating in 4-H activated while being supervised by county extension staff. Scott Anderson, Chelsea Stevens, and Sarah Hinkle were approved as adjunct faculty.
-Trustees approved a list of fund raisers for the 2009-2010 school year.
-Trustees approved proposed library vendors for the 2009-2010 school year.
-Trustees approved the 2009-2010 tax rates.
-Trustees approved an addendum to the 2007 Central Texas Opportunities Head Start program to move in two portable buildings to expand they classroom capacity.
-Trustees also discussed for some time a possible change in the duel credit classes to have them count for college credit and towards GPA. Several trustees still had questions regarding which classes should count. Superintendent Reece Blincoe suggested that the district could provided a list of possible classed to be offered. The district is going to contact some other area schools to find out what type of policy they have for duel credit courses. This item will be on next months agenda.
-Title 1 Federal budget money was discussed along with the anticipation of increase in the free lunch program which is covered by these funds.
-A report was submitted regarding ACT grades in the district which are currently below the state levels. A push to help students and parents be aware of programs to help students excel in taking these tests was discussed.
-A discussion was also held regarding making future term contracts only for one year. This will be on next months agenda as an action item.
