ELLSWORTH – The Ellsworth School Board is already preparing for the coming school year, discussing health insurance plans, Panther Kids Club rates and professional learning community (PLC) meeting changes during the June 12 meeting.

Superintendent Barry Cain unveiled a new health insurance plan for the school district that would go into effect Sept. 1 for three years. The deal is through carrier HealthPartners, and Cain believes it is an important deal for both the district, staff and their families.

Cain said usage of the plan has been very high in recent years, but caps on the insurance costs kept the district closer to where they needed to be.

“Two years ago we had a very bad year and we had a cap of 7%. We were very, very lucky that we had that cap in place,” Cain said. “In fact, at that point in time we were unable to renegotiate because our usage was so high. We needed to have a good year, and we had a very, very good year this year.”

The district will move to $3,000 individual and $6,000 family deductibles from $2,800 and $5,600, due to the federal minimum of embedded deductibles increasing. Cain said this will only affect individuals and families who reach the deductible.

Cain cited this as one of the top benefits with the plan, because if one member of the family hits the $3,000 deductible, any further costs no longer take from the families. The total family deductible is $6,000.

“What we have there is a flat rate this year with a cap of 6% the second year and a cap of 8% the third year,” Cain said. “Typically we’ve always budgeted 8% on an annual basis if we didn’t know what it was as a protection against ourselves, so this is major savings for the district.”

Cain said if the 7% cap was not in place last year there could have been a 17-18% increase in costs.

Panther Kids Club update

Discussion on a proposed plan that would increase the cost of Panther Kids Club from $3 per hour to $4 per hour was delayed to July.  The board talked extensively about the plan during the May school board meeting.

The district is still waiting to see the amount of grants that may be awarded to the program. Grants allowed the district to operate the program without increasing the cost to families in recent years.

“The grants have been terminated and now they’re up again, but we don’t know how much we’re going to get,” Cain said. “Once we find out, that’s going to give us a greater idea of what we need to do for rates.”

Changing the hourly rate would increase the district’s revenue by a projected $58,000 annually.

Personnel

The board approved the following personnel changes:

Hires: Olivia Carlson, clinical school social worker; Megan Hines, elementary special education teaching assistant; Cassandra Kelly, eighth grade math teacher; Alyssa Nelson, library media specialist; Julia Van Allen, seventh grade English language arts teacher.

Resignations: Julie Belz, elementary library assistant; Kimberly Bruesewitz, before and after school time program director; Riley Groh, elementary school health aide; Lydia Krueger, middle school special education teacher.

Transfers: Scott Nelson, from substitute bus driver to bus driver; Jessica Puhrmann, from elementary health aide to district wide nurse; Pattie Wilen, from teaching assistant long-term sub to high school special education teaching assistant.

Extra/co-curricular: James Georgakas, from eighth grade football assistant coach to eighth grade football head coach; Kayla Klecker, from varsity volleyball assistant coach to high school volleyball head coach.