VIENNA — The Maries County R-1 School District’s Board of Education on Sept. 24 approved a proposal by two members of the senior class to visit Panama City Beach, Florida, during this year’s senior trip.

Only five seniors plan to take the trip: three boys and two girls. They plan to take one man and one woman as chaperones though which staff members would join them was not yet finalized. The estimated cost is $16,000. The class had about $28,000 available at the time of the meeting.

The students did not yet have accommodations selected. They said they were working with a travel agent and would likely stay in a condo. The group plans to fly to Florida.

Later in the meeting, the board appointed staff members to several different positions within the district. All the appointments stayed the same from last year.

The board appointed Special Education Director Joe Edwards as the district’s safety coordinator, homeless coordinator, gifted coordinator, foster care point of contact, migrant coordinator and English language learning coordinator. Other appointments included counselor Natalie Martin as the at-risk coordinator and Vienna High School Principal Tim Metcalf as the Title IX coordinator.

Later, the board approved several plans and agreements with other entities. One of the agreements the board approved was a memorandum of understanding with Compass Health. The company sends a counselor to the school to work with students.

Last year, the district had a one-time grant that allowed the Compass Health counselor to work with all students as the grant’s funding allowed. This year, without the grant funding, the district’s agreement with Compass Health only covers services for students with Medicaid. Superintendent Teresa Messersmith said students who do not have Medicaid may still receive services on campus through Compass Health, but parents or guardians will pay for the costs of those services on an income-based scale.

The board approved the memorandum of understanding with Compass Health.

Next, board members approved the agreement with the city of Vienna to pay $3,000 for use of Vienna City Park for baseball and softball games and practices for the year. The payment was only $2,775 after the city agreed to cover the cost of sports equipment damaged during maintenance at the park.

AT&T provided the district’s phone contract for $1,400 per month, which was about $48 per line in addition to fees and service charges. This year, the price increased to $2,200 per month. After searching for alternatives, Messersmith proposed the district switch its phone services to Socket Internet and Phone for $555 per month.

The board approved the switch from AT&T to Socket. The district must pay $450 per month for the remaining eight months of the AT&T contract, which when combined with the cost of the new service, will still be less than the district would pay by staying with AT&T over those eight months.

The Missouri School Board Association (MSBA) updated its policies for 2024, and the Maries R-1 board reviewed those updates at the meeting. Messersmith recommended approving the updates with one exception for policy GDBDA to make slight changes to suit the district.

Policy GDBDA covers leave for support staff. As written, the policy would give support staff personal time equal to their full-time equivalent status. Under the revision the board adopted, support staff with between one-half and one full-time equivalency will receive half the personal time and sick leave of full-time employees.

Messersmith said she had talked with administrators at two other schools that followed the same version of the policy as Maries R-1. The district only has a few employees who would not qualify for leave under the policy because they work less than half of full-time equivalency, and Messersmith said the school will work with those employees if they need time off.

The board also amended the MSBA version of the policy to allow personal leave days to accumulate as sick days the next school year to remain consistent with the district’s previous policy.

Another item on the agenda was approval of the district’s dyslexia plan. Vienna Elementary School Principal Shanda Snodgrass said the only changes to the plan were minor to include i-Ready diagnostic testing.

The board also approved the district’s professional development plan with changes to dates for the 2024-25 school year.