MACS establishes home school assistance program
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At a special meeting Friday, August 21, the Mount Ayr Community Schools board of directors approved a new home school assistance program.
The program’s policy statement explains its intent: “This program will assist students receiving competent private instruction by providing licensed employees of the school district to assist the parent, guardian or legal custodian in the education of the student.”
The policy requires the parents, guardians or custodians registering for the home school assistance program to agree to comply with the requirements established by the faculty of the program.
Mount Ayr superintendent Jason Shaffer stated the district is in the process of hiring a part-time home school liaison who will take part in designing details of the program prior to its launch.
Besides providing educational assistance to home-schooled students, the program carries two other main benefits:
1) the district may again count those students in its official head count each year, thus increasing state per-pupil funding; and
2) home-schooled students would be eligible to participate in extra-curricular activities.
In other business at Wednesday’s special meeting, the board approved the recommendation from Shaffer to increase the pay rate for substitute teachers.
Shaffer shared a comparison show sub pay rates for all Pride of Iowa conference schools.
At $100 per day, Mount Ayr ranked last among the eight schools reporting. The highest pay rate among those schools was $115 per day at East Union, Nodaway Valley, and Southeast Warren.
Recognizing the increasing competition to hire competent substitutes, the Mount Ayr board voted to raise its sub pay to $120 per day, the most among conference schools.
In final action, the board approved the addition of Dustin Larsen as a volunteer football coach.
