Registration, lunch prices increase for Red Oak schools

 Prices to attend school in Red Oak are increasing for the upcoming school year. 

At a school board meeting last week, the board passed an increase in prices for school meals, activity passes and registration fees. 

For students, breakfast will increase 10 cents and lunch will go up 25 cents. By state requirements, the school district is required to raise the prices at least 10 cents per meal. To catch up to state standards, it was recommended to school Accounting Clerk Jeanice Lester to raise the prices more than that. 

“The gal at the state that we consult on this with said at 10 cents, we’re never going to catch up,” Lester said. “She recommends that we do more than that.” 

Lester then said in order in “catch up,” the price would need to increase to $2.70, but she said the state doesn’t “expect [them] to do it all at once.”  Superintendent Terry Schmidt said if the board was uncomfortable with increasing that much, a smaller number would still be a big help. He said he believes it just needs to be more than 10 cents. 

“I think we had some talk internally that if you felt like we could afford it [and raise the prices] by 25 cents, that’d be significant, that’d be huge, to do that,” Schmidt said.

During a May meeting, the board voted against contracting outside food services, but discussed raising meal prices more than the minimum requirement to be more competitive. 

“[When we were] looking at contracted services, we said maybe this is a time we do more than the minimum, too,” School Board President Lee Fellers said. “When we talked about that then, we were talking about that being a way for us to provide more variety and those things.”

Another price increase discussed was activity passes. 

When discussing whether these prices should increase, Red Oak High School assistant principal and activities director Barry Bower said he believes they should because prices haven’t gone up in a few years, but the activities department is spending more. 

“The reason [the price needs to increase] is because officials are asking more and more for prices,” Bower said. “I think regarding the activities piece, we need to spike that up, whether you go $10 for student or family, but at least $10.”

Red Oak High School principal Jeff Spotts said revenue from activity passes has decreased about $3,000, so raising the prices may be a solution. 

After some discussion, the board passed a motion to increase activity pass prices $10 apiece. For the 2015-16 school year, student passes will be $50, adult passes will be $60 and family passes will be $160. 

The board also discussed raising the prices of textbook and registration fees. At first, board member Kathy Walker proposed raising prices for grades 6-12 because the children are provided laptops.

“I say go up to $50,” Walker said. “I mean, they’re getting computers now. And, [K-5], if you want to leave it, that’s fine … to me, public education is still a pretty good bargain.”

At first, Walker made a motion to raise prices to $50 for grades 6-12 and leave K-5 alone. Board member Bill Drey said he believed they all needed to be increased, not just grades 6-12, but he also didn’t agree with the amount increasing by $20 in one year. 

“I just think we should probably increase it, but we should increase all three levels, but I’m not in favor of increasing [grades] 6-8 by $20 in one year,” Drey said. “I think that’s too steep an increase.”

Board member Paul Griffen wanted to see more data to make a more informed decision about the amount of the increase. 

“Show me the numbers that say our technology is costing us more than it did [when we first got it],” Griffen said. “Show me the data that says we’ve changed $20 in cost of our textbooks, workbooks, everything … Show me the dollar figure that justifies a $20 increase … I’m doing this without data. I don’t like that.”

After more discussion, Walker made an amendment to her motion by increasing grades K-5 by $5 for workbooks. 

The increase for registration fees passed 3-2, with Drey and Griffen voting against it. 

The 2015-16 school year registration fees will be $35 for grades K-5 and $50 for grades 6-12.