Salem Grade School Superintendant Dr. Leslie Foppe announced at Thursday night’s school board meeting that the school had received a CLIA waiver to allow them to provide free COVID-19 testing.
Foppe says the goal is to keep more kids in school.
“The nurse will call and get parental consent and if the parent does consent we can test the child to stay. If they have any type of Covid symptoms. So if they test and they are negative then they can stay in school. This alleviates the pressure on the parent of taking them to the doctor or getting tested somewhere else, we do that right here. We also can test to stay for kids who are exposed at school, but only at school, and they are tested certain days.”
Foppe says the school nurses will provide the tests that consist of a nose swab.
Foppe was pleased to announce 10 of the 11 new street lights installed by Ameren along the back roadway between Hawthorn and Franklin Park were turned on Wednesday night. Work on the 11th light is expected to be completed shortly. Foppe says the formerly dark area is now well lit up.
The school board passed its 2021 Property Tax Levy. Foppe says it is 3.9-percent higher than what was collected on tax bills this year, but the district may not receive that much. The board abated $243,000 in bonds for the building improvement projects that will be paid for by the 1-cent sales tax being collected for
schools.
In personnel action, the board approved the hiring of Taylor Jeffords as a full-time paraprofessional and Caleb Smith as a part-time high school worker.
