Bay City Tribune

Bay City ISD trustees chose to hold off on approving a memorandum of understanding with the Boys and Girls Club of Bay City to lease a portion of the Pierce Elementary School campus during the Monday night Nov. 17 board meeting.

Paul Johnson, Bay City ISD school board president, said he and another trustee had received phone calls from residents with more questions about the operation of the Boys and Girls Club of Bay City.

"I know several of us have had phone calls from several neighbors in the neighborhood," said Johnson.

"The calls were not negative, there were just people who lived in the neighborhood and they were curious about some things."

Trustee Chris Crummett asked Janet Peden, Boys and Girls Club of Bay City board member, about the hours of operation and the level of supervision that would be provided to the children after hours.

Crummett asked if the children would be allowed to walk home or if there will be a requirement that they are picked up.

"That's a procedural question that I don't know the answer to yet," said Peden.

She added that the Boys and Girls Club of America serves youth ages six to 18.

"We may consider limiting the upper age of the students we accept for the first couple of years - that's something we still have to look at," said Peden.

She said they haven't formally set the hours of operation but were considering 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. or 3 to 7 p.m.

"We are required to be open a minimum of four hours a day during the school year," said Peden.

She told the board that the club was shooting for a target opening date of fall 2010 and said the club was hoping to begin renovations of the Pierce campus in late February or March.

"We're about to launch a fundraising campaign thinking that we would be given permission to at least move forward in theory," she said.

Johnson told her it would be safe to proceed along those lines.

"I think in theory you can probably go ahead and keep doing what you are doing," he said.

The trustees agreed to hold a workshop on the memorandum of understanding with the Boys and Girls Club of Bay City to work out the final agreement.

Trustees also directed Bay City ISD Superintendent Keith Brown to draft an operating agreement between the district and BayCel Credit Union following a presentation on the new student run credit union located inside the high school.

Several members of the Bay City Credit Union Board of directors along with Paula Abshire, BayCel Bay City branch manager, and Melinda Owen, BayCel financial coordinator, attended the meeting to answer questions for the school board.

According to Abshire, Bay City High School is home to one of 48 student-run credit unions.

Owen said the credit union is available to Bay City ISD students and staff only.

She told trustees the credit union would not be open to the public and cause unwanted traffic to the school.

"We want to give these students every opportunity to thrive financially," she said.

Owens explained that students were required to have a signed permission form from parents to open an account and that she would personally contact the parents before the account was open for student use.

Each student is required to take a mandatory financial education class when they open an account, she said.

"We teach them how to save, how to use a debit card, how to write checks and how to budget and plan for the future," said Owen.

"We don't want money controlling them but for them to be able to control their money," she said.