North Union partnered with Muskingum Valley to secure grant funding focused helping their kids get their driver’s license.
At the Board of Education meeting last week, the board motioned to approve the service agreement between North Union Local Schools and Muskingum Valley Educational Service Center (MVESC) for a term of three years from Jan. 1, 2024 through July 31, 2027.
Together with MVESC, North Union received the Creating Opportunities for Driver Education (CODE) Grant from the Ohio Traffic Safety Office that provides funding for driver training enterprises to start or expand driver training programs, according to their website.
According to their website, the Ohio Traffic Safety Office says that many teens delay licensure due to the cost of education, lack of access and long wait times for training. The CODE grant aims to solve these issues.
“Any of us who have had kids in school, it is a nightmare trying to get cars scheduled that aren’t during a school day,” Superintendent Justin Ufferman said.
He said the grant will allow them to do several things, including the purchase of a car for the program using $20,000 from the grant.
Ufferman said that North Union will not have a driving program, rather they will contract with Muskingum Valley driving school and they will be the owners of it.
They will also have the ability to hire from within North Union’s own staff for positions in the program, such as driver coordinators and in-car teachers, Ufferman said.
“So they have the ability to offer money, which would be like stipends for them,” Ufferman said. “(Some of) the other districts they work with they’ve hired bus drivers and given them a supplement to be the in-car drivers.”
According to Muskingum Valley Driving School, for similar schools the cost out of pocket for the students falls between $300 and $350. Ufferman said those are details they need to work through with Muskingum Driving School.
“You can also schedule those in-cars at more convenient times because if it’s our people making those scheduled arrangements and our coordinator making those scheduling arrangements there’s more of an investment,” Ufferman said.
In other news, students Zane Temple and Ian Hartings of North Union High School took first place in the Mobile Robotics competition at the SkillsUSA Ohio State Championships. They will head to nationals in late June.
The board motioned to employ Kelly Wagner to be the new High School Pre-Nursing Instructor. Wagner has 30 years of nursing experience, and she has been doing school nursing for the last 17 years.
Senate Bill 168 had its second hearing, which would allow school districts to develop their own frameworks for teacher evaluation instead of those developed by the State Board of Education, Board member Bradley DeCamp said. The bill also looks at modifying license and certification requirements for senior lead professional educators, professional administrator alternatives, superintendent licenses and non-teachers employed as teachers. DeCamp said SB 168 is backed by the State and School board associations.