BY FIONA MORGAN

fiona@amnews.com

The Boyle County Schools Board of Education approved changes to procedures for accepting non-resident students at their meeting on Feb. 16.

The changes are refinements to 09.12 AP.21 Application for Nonresident Admission and Students, and 09.12 AP.22 Nonresident Student Enrollment.

Nonresident students applying to Boyle County Schools must now be in good academic standing, not have significant behavior events, and be in good attendance. The term of enrollment will be one year, subject to annual review in compliance with the above criteria.

They also added a small statement regarding siblings of currently enrolled nonresident students. The schools will give priority to siblings over new applicants, only when possible.

This decision is in response to a local family who attended the previous meeting who spoke about a need for adding a policy about siblings, since they said family logistics would be difficult to have kids in two school systems.

Superintendent Mike Lafavers said they surveyed 80 families to get a sense of how many siblings they might get. Over the next five years, they found that they would receive about 50 siblings.

In a district of about 2,800 students, there are 276 nonresident students currently enrolled, an increase of 120 from the previous school year. Lafavers said they will be making decisions about enrollment caps and tuition for nonresidents in April.

BOE buys a bass boat

The board accepted a bid for a fishing boat for Boyle County High School’s bass fishing team. The boat is $42,616 from Pittsburg Marine in London, Kentucky, and the boat model is a Triton 19 TRX.

“We definitely want to invest in that team, although our budget situation’s tightening on us a bit,” Lafavers said, referring to lowering numbers in the district’s general fund.

Since the bid would expire before the next meeting, the board decided to accept it. “It’s a good investment in the team, it’s got a lot of kids who participate,” Lafavers said.

The team has 29 students from sixth through 12th grade. They’re in their ninth season since it started in 2014.

Bass Team Coach David Christopher said they currently have two boats. They will trade in one of them that has an $18,000 trade value.

The fishing team will also contribute $7,000 from their activity fund toward the $42,616, and the board will pay the rest.

The team went to the national tournament last year. They asked the board to cover hotel room expenses; but up until that point, the team had covered all their own expenses, never asking for money from the board.

Christopher said the boat will last at least 10 or 20 years. He explained that a new boat would give them a competitive advantage over other fishing teams throughout the country.

“It would give our student anglers an opportunity, especially ones who fish in boats that don’t have high technology,” Christopher said. “The technology has changed so much, we’re seeing a trend with students who are fishing in high quality boats.”

Students with higher quality boats tend to do better in competition. Christopher said they’re buying the boat for students who can’t afford a boat, and so they can give everyone on the team an opportunity to use better equipment.

“What we would do is rotate those kids who don’t get that opportunity to be in that type of boat, to give them the same chance as the kid who’s sitting in the $80,000 boat,” Christopher said.

In other business, the board:

• Approved two payments to Brett Construction Co. for the new Boyle County High School Softball Construction Project, for $234,001 and $456,230. The board is considering bonding for this project. The district could bond up to $3.5 million on payments they’ve already made. They will decide soon on how much to bond and may discuss it at the next meeting.

• Staffing allocations for Special Education, Title 1 staffing, and preschool staffing will remain the same for the 2023 to 2024 school year.