Prairie Home district to pay more in health premiums

The Prairie Home School District will be paying more health insurance premiums for staff due to more claims being filed by school districts enrolled in the Missouri Educator Unified Health Plan.

The plan is charging all member districts $48 per subscriber covered per month in 2018. For Prairie Home, the annual fee will total $15,408.

Superintendent Michele Rex will be researching alternate health insurance programs for the 2019-20 school year.

"Basically, all member districts have to pay extra money in to cover school districts that filed a lot of claims last year," said Rachel Lock, secretary of the school board. "This type of unexpected expense is never welcome, so we are looking at other health care plan options."

In other business, the board:

  • Learned K-Truck submitted a bid of $81,403 to cover exterior repairs to the school building. The board requested additional bids.
  • Was invited by the junior class to attend prom April 13. The grand march will be held at 7 p.m at the United Methodist Hall.
  • Learned Rex attended the Missouri Interactive Television-Education Network Board of Directors meeting. There was discussions of ways to adapt the ITV classes to make them accessible to more students. ITV classes are Interactive TeleVison classes that high school students can take for college credit.
  • Was updated by Cooper County Assessor Christy Linhart about current and upcoming property reassessment. Cooper County, which hasn't had a reassessment since before 2008, is reassessing properties now.