(Photo by Amber Phipps) The Marietta City Schools Board of Education held a special meeting Friday morning to discuss two agenda items. Sam Tuten was absent for the meeting.

The Marietta City Schools Board of Education entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Akron Children’s Hospital during a special board meeting Friday.

The agenda for the special meeting included discussion on school-based health systems and potential transportation services with electric buses.

There were MOUs from Nationwide and Akron which offered various school-based health programs. The board discussed the main differences between the two offers.

Akron offered a focus on telehealth services which would require an existing office space within the school building and the necessary staffing such as a nurse practitioner and medical assistant.

Nationwide focused mainly on in-person care and required the construction of an entirely new clinic space in the high school.

(Photo by Amber Phipps) Marietta City Schools Board of Education member Russ Garrison handed out a compare and contrast sheet for the offers from Akron and Nationwide Children’s Hospitals on Friday morning.

Boardmember John Lehman started the discussion by stating that he was in full support of Akron’s services for multiple reasons.

“My other major concern with Nationwide was that the lady who gave the presentation talked mainly about prescriptions,” he said.

Lehman said Nationwide focused largely on prescriptions which he said is where they return their investment.

“I’m about as anti-drug as you can get” and “there are other solutions,” he said,

Boardmember Russ Garrison provided the board with a compare and contrast list of the two offers. It was agreed that both offers were good but accepting the offer from Akron would open the door to more opportunities for the school to connect with other medical organizations in the county.

“We’re trying to get kids here and keep them here and so getting the chronic absenteeism down is a huge issue,” said Board President Cody Parman.

Akron offered telehealth services which would allow the child to be seen in-school, receive the necessary treatment and then return to class if authorized. This would relieve parents from having to take off work and maintain that goal of keeping the students in class if they’re able to.

“Chronic absenteeism is a solid connection to academic performance and if you’re not in the classroom then you’re not learning,” said Garrison.

Although it was agreed that Nationwide currently has more of a selection of medical personnel, Akron is expanding their outpatient care with specialists like primary pediatricians that would be accepting new patients.

“You’re betting on the relationships, you’re betting on the buildout in the county,” said Boardmember Eric Reed. “We want people to bet on Marietta City Schools…we’re asking them to continue to make this better.”

No decision was made on the discussion about the Highland Electric School Bus services.

“I guess the budget issue would answer this really quickly if we know we can’t spend it out of the PI fund,” said Parman.

Highland Electric is a private equity company that is offering to install a charging station and provide four electric buses for 10 years and one bus free for five years. The cost would be around $225,000 funded from an EPA grant if approved.

Director of Operations Dash McNeal provided a more detailed overview of the offer. The electric buses wouldn’t replace the diesel buses, but would rather be used instead for routes under 135 miles long. Lehman said there was no need to continue discussing this because the grant hadn’t been finalized for the Highland company, so if the company runs out of funding in a few years, the 10-year lease would promptly end.

“I’m in this business and every electric car company I’ve seen has failed,” said Lehman. “Electric vehicles pollute four to five times more than diesel engines, fact.”

Treasurer Frank Antill said that there have been schools in other states who received their buses but they were still waiting on the EPA funding.

Lehman made a motion to end any further discussion on the proposal but Garrison was willing to extend the short term contract to see if funding would be approved.

Since no decision was made, there will be further discussion on the electric bus transportation services during the regular board meeting on Monday.