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Absenteeism down at Leetonia school

LEETONIA — Attendance at Leetonia schools is improving thanks to incentive programs and proactive approaches to ensuring students are in class, according to school officials.

High School Principal Troy Radinsky told the school board Tuesday night chronic absenteeism so far this school year is at 20.2 percent. Last year the rate was 24.5 percent.

The school administration targeted the chronic absenteeism rate for improvement to help raise overall performance on the Ohio Department of Education’s local report card. Radinsky said there is a three-tier program with addendums in place to promote daily attendance and celebrate student attendance, including incentive programs for students who have true hurdles in making it to school every day and home visits, phone calls, letters and informal student meetings with counselor for students who are missing school.

Radinsky said he is using data from previous years to identify problematic students and established an absence intervention team of a counselor, principal, teacher, parent, school resource officer and others for those that need it.

Also at the meeting, food service manager Alexis Plant reported the district has partnered with Pizza Hut to provide the main entree with an alternative lunch option every other Friday beginning Nov. 1 in the elementary and every other Friday beginning Nov. 8 in the middle/high school. The Pizza Hut pizza will replace the pizza the Nutrition Group makes for the middle/high school on the designation Fridays. Pizza Hut will also provide a banner, T-shirts for the cooks and coupons for personal pan pizzas on lucky tray days.

Plant said Pizza Hut is certified through the National School Lunch Program and the Nutrition Group is partnering with the pizza chain to offer something different for students to encourage purchases.

Additionally, maintenance supervisor Dan Favazzo reported energy savings of $143,514.44 to date since the completion of an upgrade to the K-12 campus temperature control and lighting systems in the spring of 2017 by CCG Automation. He said the district has also increased its Energy Star rating 70 points to a 92. The Energy Star rating measures energy efficiency per federally mandated guidelines.

Favazzo also noted the energy savings in the past 12 months is $67,214.23, more than the average of the previous two years.

In other business the board granted supplemental coaching contracts to Glen Windram for seventh-grade girls basketball, Josh Good for girls varsity track head, Ron Potesta for seventh-grade boys basketball, Paul Gray for assistant varsity boys basketball, Nick Hulea for boys varsity track head and Paul Gray for baseball head; hired as before/after school workers Amy Gibson, Brandon Frenger, Deirdre Sadler, Rick Davis and John McIlduff; and approved a memorandum of understanding with the Leetonia Education Association regarding value-added progress dimensions as part of teacher evaluations.

The board also accepted donations of $50 from the Leetonia American Legion to the golf program, $450 from the Washingtonville VFW for the football program and $1,500 from Bob and Linda Sebo to the boys basketball program.

khowell@salemnews.net

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