Staff writer
Hillsboro band students will no longer need to pay to rent school instruments thanks to a unanimous vote Monday by the USD 410 school board.
The board agreed that eliminating fees could increase interest among students.
“I would sure support deleting those fees as a good attempt to get a kid or two in there,” board member Rod Koons said.
New superintendent Max Heinrichs also supported the idea.
“If it will get kids into the band program, I will be all for it,” he said.
Koons said kids did not like using school instruments but did not have another option because buying their own was expensive.
“You already got a conflict there because mom and dad are going to make the kid use the schools’ instruments,” Koons said. “That’s almost as bad as riding the bus in high school.”
Heinrichs said the decrease in revenue would be inconsequential.
“I just don’t see enough money there to make a big deal about it,” he said.
Koons said consumers did not like to be “inundated with fees and things like that.”
“The cleaner we can make that,” he said, “the better retailer we are.”
In other business:
- The board approved moving Sara Bennett from middle and high school custodian to north bus driver, and contracting with Julia Jost as middle and high school accompanist, Kalee Cross as middle school girls basketball assistant, and Joy Mark as FACT director.
- The board appointed Jim Paulus as special education representative with Joe Sechrist as alternate; TEEN representative, board president Mark Rooker as KASB governmental relations rep and TEEN representative with Tim Kaufman as alternate; Rod Koons as chief negotiator with Mark Rooker as assistant; Kim Klein as professional development council rep, and Jared Jost as USD 410 technology committee rep.