AUBURN — More school crossing guards are coming to Minot Avenue following an accident that involved a 7-year-old boy near Fairview Elementary School on Tuesday, Superintendent Susan Dorris said at the School Committee meeting Wednesday.

“We are very thankful that the student was not seriously injured,” Dorris said. “We met with city staff today to debrief the incident and we will be adding additional crossing guards and increasing police presence on Minot Avenue.”

In another issue, the district has the final enrollment numbers for the ongoing school year, which will be used for next year’s budget planning, Dorris announced Wednesday.

“As of yesterday, we are officially up 65 students from last year,” Dorris said. “These are the numbers that we use when we’re developing our budget and these are the numbers that we look at from year to year in terms of really measuring how many students we have going up or down,” she added. “We’re happy to be up 65 students from last year.”

Multilingual learner enrollments are still coming in, amounting to an 18% increase at Park Avenue Elementary School.

“The increase that you’re seeing there is primarily our (multilingual learner) students who are enrolling.” As a matter of fact, she said, Park Avenue School  Principal Stephanie Marris “was just sharing today with us that they had eight new enrollments today,” Dorris said. “We’re looking very carefully at each enrollment and looking at the levels of the students that are coming in to see whether or not we can service those students in other schools.”

In another motion, the committee approved the first reading of a new policy for earned paid leave for school staff.

“Maine’s Earned Paid Leave law was enacted in 2021 and this allows employees to accrue one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked, up to a maximum 40 hours per year,” Dorris explained. “This leave can be used for any reason, including personal, medical, or family needs. This is worked into our contracts, and for those employees that do not have contracts, they can accrue time and they can take earned paid leave up to a maximum of 40 hours per year,” she added.

“This policy reflects (the state law) and it is written in the language of the statute and the procedure follows that as well,” Dorris said. “This is just updating our policy book to reflect what is in state statute.”