Silver Lake District appoints land negotiation team for the possible sale of land from the District’s main campus to the Town of Kingston
The Silver Lake Regional School Committee met on Thursday, November 12th. Most members were present, although Plympton member and secretary Maureen Springer was present digitally via a video chat service while vacationing in the Bahamas.
Silver Lake District appoints land negotiation team for the possible sale of land from the District’s main campus to the Town of Kingston for a Police office.
Several major topics were discussed, including the appointment of a Land Request Negotiation Team for the possible sale of land from the District’s main campus to the Town of Kingston for the purpose of locating a new police station.
High School Nurse Penny Svenson presented briefly to the board asking for permission to purchase NARCAN, a medicine that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, for the Middle School and High School, and the district’s attorney determined that the aging phone system at the High School could not be replaced by declaring an emergency, but must be funded through normal means.
Land Request Negotiation Team
The school committee quickly appointed a team to negotiate with district towns to get the best deal for the Silver Lake Regional School District in terms of the proposed sale of a five-acre parcel of land owned by the District but wanted by the Town of Kingston for a new police station.
The members of the negotiating team who were appointed are the Superintendent Joy Blackwood, member Maureen Springer, who represents Plympton, member Mark Guidaboni, who represents Kingston, and the district’s attorney.
The board voted to approve these four members unanimously and without discussion as to the make-up of the team.
The sale, if approved by the district, would then need to be unanimously approved by the voters of Kingston, Halifax, and Plympton at their respective town meetings in the spring. It is likely that Kingston voters will approve the land-sale, as they already approved $30,000 at their last town meeting to move forward with project planning at that location.
All of the towns would proportionally split any profit from the land sale.
NARCAN in schools
High School nurse Penny Svenson came before the board with a bleak request. She wants to put two doses of NARCAN each in the Middle School and the High School.
NARCAN, a medicine that reverses the effects of an acute opioid overdose, has been credited with saving many lives during the current ongoing opioid crisis. Many law-enforcement agencies routinely carry the medicine.
Although Svenson stated that she did not want to be taking this action, but “that we need to.” She likened NARCAN to Epi-Pens, which are used to reverse severe allergic reactions. She also stated that NARCAN is finding its way into many school districts across the Commonwealth, even elementary schools.
Svenson says that the NARCAN will stay locked in the nurses’ offices and used only if necessary in an emergency, just as Epi-Pens are. Right now, Svenson is the only district staff member trained to administer NARCAN, but expressed hope that others will be trained in the future.
The board approved the proposal unanimously.
Broken telephones not an emergency
The Express erroneously reported that work had begun on the problem-plagued phone system at the High School. It has not, and the phones continue to be unreliable. In an attempt to secure funding to immediately fix the phones, the idea of declaring the phones an “Emergency” was floated as a solution at a previous board meeting.
The district’s attorney did not believe that this was legally possible, so Superintendent Blackwood plans to “band-aid” the system through this year and attempt to obtain funding through the regular budgeting process.