FARMINGTON – SAD 9 directors voted Tuesday night to put up to $10,000 toward a ball field project and agreed to allocate money for 305 laptop computers for incoming freshmen.
Superintendent Michael Cormier recommended the money for the ball field. A group of parents is leading a campaign to raise money to build new athletic fields at the Mount Blue Middle School. Having already received $10,000 from Franklin Savings Bank and Kyes Insurance, the parents looked to the school board for more.
The district has $15,089.02 in its middle school construction project budget and board members didn’t want to commit to the total amount requested.
After the initial allocation of $10,000 was voted down, board members then agreed to the wording of “up to $10,000.” The board plans to commit to a particular sum of money after all fund raising has been accomplished by the parent volunteers.
“I have good faith and effort in our part to support parents who are fund raising this project,” Cormier said.
Thanks to the effort of Assistant Superintendent Susan Pratt, incoming freshmen at Mount Blue High School this fall could possibly have personal laptops.
All freshmen and grade nine teachers would then have the opportunity to bring a laptop home by checking them out through the school.
The program will cost upward of $91,500 a year for four years. Payment of the first year will come from the $61,500 carryover from the Title IIA professional development budget and $30,000 from the school department’s local technology fund.
Board members were also curious about where the money would come from for the payment of the remaining three years.
Cormier reassured them that the state could possibly pick up the cost of the project, but nothing is certain.
“This is still in the works and there is a lot of work to do regarding policies, parental consent and storage,” Cormier said.
Directors agreed to raise prices in the breakfast program for grades seven through 12. A full breakfast will now cost 70 cents instead of 60, and the cost of a second breakfast was raised from 75 cents to 85 cents. The cost of milk is going from 30 cents to 35 cents a carton due to an increase in bid prices.
Cormier also recommended that substitute pay for teachers be increased $5 a day and that secretary and education technicians’ pay be increased to $7 an hour, 30 cents more than it is now.
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