JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF) – The Campbell County Board of Education heard a proposal at its Tuesday meeting for a partnership agreement with Day Spring Health Services that would improve health care at Jellico Elementary School and Jellico High School.

Day Spring spokesman Dr. Geogy Thomas told the board the non-profit service can be eligible for a grant that would enable it to provide high quality health care at Jellico schools. Day Spring already operates health clinics at Jellico and Williamsburg, Kentucky and currently has a service partnership with Williamsburg schools.

Day Spring would provide $95,000 worth of equipment with a main clinic at Jellico Elementary and a satellite location at Jellico High. LPNs provided by the school system would staff both sites with support from the Day Spring staff and telehealth access to physician assistants at the clinics.

The clinic would also provide dental health, behavioral health and counseling, while staying away from some services that might prove controversial such as birth control or drug screening, Thomas said.

Before moving further on the agenda, Director Jennifer Fields presented the recipients of Teacher of the Year awards in each of the county’s schools, along with a Principal of the Year award to Jason Dotson, principal at Valley View Elementary. Faye Heatherly also awarded state TSBA participation certificates to board members Lisa Fields and Steve Morgan.

Fields announced that plans are finalized for summer learning camps to be offered to students four days a week between June 6 and June 24. All schools will offer the camps except Jacksboro Middle School and Jellico High. The board approved a resolution authorizing the camps and establishing compensation amounts and funding protocols. They then suspended the rules to approve a motion establishing a bus contract setting reimbursement for drivers at $203 per day for the 16 days on the summer learning camp schedule.

The board also voted to advertise for bids on numerous kits, equipment and other training materials that will be covered by part of the federal ESSER funds (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund-ESSER Fund) provided to school systems to help address learning loss and other negative effects on education from the pandemic. Campbell County has been allocated $24,823,307 in ESSER funds and federal guidelines also allow funding capital projects that relate to air quality or other infrastructure related to learning.

As a result, Campbell County is shifting the costs of various roof projects to ESSER sources while bonds previously earmarked for the roof projects will now be used to repair and upgrade deteriorated parking lots. That change has also been presented to the county commission for approval since the bonds were a joint commission-school board effort. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 05/12/2021-6AM)