Over the past four years, the Siloam Springs School District's summer meal program has served 55,182 lunches and nearly 60,000 meals in total, according to Jason Carter, director of child nutrition for the district.
Carter and Krystal Wheat, director of the Panther Health and Wellness Clinic and Bright Futures Siloam Springs program, gave a report about the summer lunch program and back to school backpack giveaway at Thursday's school board meeting.
During the summer of 2018, the program served an average of 381 kids per day, distributing a total of 19,785 lunches including 2,035 mobile meals, as well as 649 breakfasts and 3,173 snack packs, Carter said. Meals are free to all children under the age of 18, whether or not they attend school in the district or qualify for free or reduced lunches.
"It's a huge outreach for our students and our community," Carter said.
This year, the summer meal program served meals for 52 days at it's six sites, which include Allen Elementary School, the Middle School and four mobile sites.
"That's all but five (week) days between the last day of school and the first day of school, and two of those were holidays -- July Fourth and Memorial Day -- so there was only three days outside of the holidays that we didn't serve lunches at all these sites," Carter said. "That was really big for us."
The district also added a breakfast program for students who attend the Boys and Girls Club so that parents could drop their students off at 7:30 a.m. before work, a fourth mobile location at Siloam Springs Public Library and enhanced snack packs.
"Opening the Middle School last year and the library this year has brought us into a new little target area that we weren't previously in," Carter said.
In addition, the book give-away program and activity program at mobile sites were expanded, Carter said. Potter's House sponsored activities at the mobile sites on Thursdays, and volunteers from local organizations such Arvest Bank and DaySpring Cards led the crafts and games.
The district also received $16,000 in donations from Arvest Bank and Simmons Foods that enabled them to nearly double the amount of food students received on Friday to take home for the weekend.
Wheat said that Carter was able to spend the donation wisely so that there is still plenty of food to continue supplementing snack packs during the school year.
She reported that during the Back to School Bright Futures event they distributed 500 backpacks full of supplies, and said that many more backpacks have been distributed since.
Through the United Way Stuff the Bus fundraiser, the school district collected 5,432 packages of school supplies and received $629 in donations. They also collected 419 hygiene items such as soap, shampoo and deodorant to be given away.
Nine community partners participated in the event, 90 people volunteered on the day of the event and 100 volunteered in preparation for the event, she said.
In other business, school board members voted to appoint Roger Holroyd, who was not present, vice president of the board. Holroyd, who formerly served as secretary, will fill the role left open when board member Brent Butler resigned in July. In August, board members voted to appoint Travis Jackson to Butler's Zone 5 board seat until the next election.
During the meeting, school board members also approved a resolution accepting a list of more than 250 contracted employees who received a salary increase of more than five percent between the 2016-2017 school year and the 2017-2018 school year.
Terry Raskiewicz, chief financial officer for the district, explained that state law requires the district to compile the list, which compares one complete school year to the next.
"Years ago, when this went into effect, it was not thought that our school board was made aware of who made a lot more money as compared to the year before so this is just to make you all aware of who has had an increase in salary," she said.
There are many reasons why salaries increase more than five percent in a year, she said, including reworking salary schedules, employees who move from part-time to full-time work, and employees who work only a portion of one year and the entire year the next.
For example, the employee who received the largest salary increase -- 99,872 percent -- worked only enough during the 2016-2017 school year to earn $48, but earned a full-time salary of more than $48,000 the following year.
School board members also approved resolutions to declare the district does business with Harp's Foods and Arvest Bank. The resolution is required by state law because board president Brian Lamb is the manager of Harp's and Holroyd is the president of Arvest Siloam Springs, said Superintendent Ken Ramey. The district does business with Harps because it offers competitive prices and does business with all of the banks in Siloam Springs, including Arvest, he said. Lamb left the room while the resolution was passed and Holroyd was not present.
The board passed additional resolutions to contract with a group of 12 local businesses owned or managed by a spouse or family member of a school district employee. The public declaration is also required by state law, Ramey said. Each of the businesses filled out a form explaining what type of services the business provides the district, the amount of their contract and the reason the business relationship is in the best interest of the school district.
The school board took the following additional actions:
• Approved the Arkansas Department of Education Assurances for programs under the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965.
• Approved a demonstration of compliance that the district will use federal funds to supplement not supplant state required programs.
• Approved school board policy changes for the upcoming year.
• Approved a resolution permitting a school board member or board member's spouse to serve as a registered volunteer in the district.
• Approved three teachers to work through their preparatory periods during the fall 2018 semester.
• Approved hiring Ket Manary, high school special education teacher.
• Approved the transfer of one student from the Gravette School District to the Siloam Springs School District.
• Approved the transfer of seven students from the Gentry School District to the Siloam Springs School District.
• Approved the transfer of four students from the Siloam Springs School District to the Gentry School District.
• Approved the transfer of one student from the Siloam Springs School District to the Fayetteville School District.
General News on 09/19/2018