School Board adopts policies on threat response, corporal punishment

CENTERVILLE — The St. Mary Parish School Board on Thursday moved to bring its policies into line with new state legislation affecting corporal punishment, threats to students and others on campus, and online access to board meetings.

Members also heard that the cost to insure employees may soon get fatter, in part because some employees are trying to get thinner.

Policies

The board approved a list of policies developed by Forethought Consulting and reviewed by the board’s legal counsel, Hammonds and Sills.

The policies:

—Make provisions for online participation in meetings for board members and members of the public who have challenges defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Participants must certify that they have ADA-recognized disabilities.

—Add procedures that must be followed when a credible threat is discovered against someone at school. School administrators informed of the threat must inform and take steps to protect the target.

School- and Central Office-level administrators must determine whether anyone else is at risk and whether to notify and move to protect them.

Threats of violence or terrorism must be followed by an investigation. And if the investigation indicates that the threat is credible, school officials must take steps to protect all students and employees at the school.

The policy also contains requirements for reporting threats to the District Attorney’s Office.

—Make rules to keep elementary students safe at carpool and bus pickup lines. Among the rules: Students up to third grade must be accompanied by a school employee on the walk to and from the pickup area.

—Require attendance checks for students taking part in remote instruction, as happened during COVID, or a combination of remote and in-person instruction.

—Allow excused absences for up to three days in a school year “related to a student’s mental or behavioral health” if certification is provided.

—Prohibit corporal punishment in school without a parent’s permission, expressed in a document provided by the state Department of Education.

—Allow school nurses and other employees with proper training to administer naloxone “in the event of a real or perceived opioid overdose.”

Naloxone is better known under the trade name Narcan, and can be administered as an injection or a nasal spray.

Insurance

The School Board will consider renewal of its group health insurance plan next month, and the timing seems especially bad.
Blue Cross Blue Shield is the board’s current insurer. And, according to insurance consultant James Perez, “we can’t realistically expect a 0% increase. We can’t even expect a low single digit increase.”

As of July, the premiums paid by employees and the School Board this year amount to about $6.6 million. Medication and medical claims have totaled about $7.3 million.
Claims equal 110% of premiums. Last year, the loss ratio was 88%.

The plan has been hit by 45 claims of at least $25,000, including two over $95,000 and one over $215,000.

Of those 45 large claims, Perez said, 44 are still active, meaning their cost may rise further.

Another factor is the cost of prescription drugs, especially the anti-diabetes medications Ozempic and Mounjara.

They’re regarded as effective against Type 2 diabetes and can promote weight loss. But they’re also expensive — $800 to $1,000 per dose — and national reporting
has focused on the suspicion that patients are being over-diagnosed as diabetic in order to get the slimming-down benefits.

Neither drug was among the 15 most-prescribed drugs in the plan, Perez said. Now they’re at the top.

“It’s getting out of hand,” Perez said, “and not just in this plan.”

Also Thursday:

—The board recognized eight people newly appointed to school positions. They are St. Mary K-2 Instructional Specialist Kimberly Caesar; Morgan City High Assistant
Principals Larry Hartman and Angela Comeaux; Morgan City Junior High Assistant Principal Gary Aucoin; Centerville High Assistant Principal Kimberly Dupre; Franklin Junior High Assistant Principal Laquanda Gray; Patterson High Principal Amy Vaccarella; and Chief Technology Officer Kaylum Vead.

—The board accepted a bid of $4,939 each for 13 walk-through metal detectors for the LaGrange, Raintree, Foster, Centerville, Berwick Elementary, Bayou Vista, Hattie Watts, Aucoin, Norman, Maitland and Patterson Junior High campuses. The board accepted the low bid from School Specialty of Appleton, Wisconsin.

—The board authorized an agreement with the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office under which the office will conduct drug searches with a trained dog at the board’s request.

Each search will last for at least three hours and cost the School Board $300.