ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The USD 480 school board made quick work of the new business on its agenda at its first meeting of the summer.
Prior to discussion of the new business items, the board first heard the administrator reports, including one from Director of Technology Rusty Tuman regarding the purchase of Chromebooks.
“This was the main topic of conversation at the Instructional Technology Committee’s most recent meeting earlier this month for teachers and other district staff,” Tuman said. “We’re used to having docking stations year-round, but they don’t make that type of vent/AC system anymore. The old ones connected via a port, but this model doesn’t have that, and there are a few other upgrades. We spoke to the teachers and staff and got some comments about that as far as what to do in the future, and we were happy to hear it all. With the Chromebooks, this will be the first year we’ll only be doing one school, and we’ll be combining Sunflower Elementary School and Bright Start Early Learning Center. As we’ve said before, we ultimately want to make this into a sustainable model where every year, we’ll replace one grade school and give the 8th graders their Chromebooks to last them throughout high school. What we’re shooting for is 495 for Sunflower Elementary School (which would include 435 computers and 60 spares), 143 for Bright Start Early Learning Center (including 128 laptops and 15 spares), and 362 for 7th grade enrollment (which would include 302 laptops and 60 spares), for a total of 1,000 laptops. These would be Asus Chromebooks, which is the same model as last year. We bought several refurbished laptops that were newer than what we had, and we gave them to many of the teachers and staff.”
Later on in the meeting, the board ultimately voted to approve a bid for 1,000 Asus Chromebooks from Archangel Tablets in the amount of $333,690.
Up first in new business for the board was discussion of repairing and refinishing the lockers at Liberal High School.
“This work would be for the hallway lockers, the West Annex locker room, and LHS varsity and PE locker rooms,” Director of Operations Chad Mease said. “There are multiple lockers that are in rough shape and definitely need replaced, and this is the time to do it.”
After some brief discussion, the board ultimately voted to approve the quote from ElectroCoat to repair and refinish the lockers at LHS in the amount of $51,205.
Up next for the board was a pair of bus purchase requests. The first request was for a 77-passenger replacement bus, and the second request was for an additional 59-passenger bus with a wheelchair lift, which would be added to our fleet to support an additional SPED route at Bright Start Early Learning Center. The board ultimately approved a quote from Midwest Bus sales in the amount of $159,102 for the 77-passenger bus, and a quote from Midwest Bus sales in the amount of $157,006 for the 59-passenger bus. After approving those requests, the board also voted to approve one additional bus driver and one aide position for the Transportation Department.
The board then moved on to discussion about renovations to the LHS library.
“The project is supposed to be completed by the beginning of 2025, and the goal is to have all the demolition, concrete and brick work completed before school starts, and I think we’ll get the interior finished after all of that,” Mease said. “I’m really happy with the plans that were drawn up, and I’m glad this project is getting done.”
Ultimately, the board voted to approve the bid from French Construction in the amount of $1,169,263.52. to include the base bid of $1,144,654.24, Alt 2 (Millwork Bookshelf: $7,803.22) and Alt. 3 (Millwork Seating Bookshelf: $16,806.06).
The board also approved the payment application to Hellas Construction in the amount of $101,379.38, approved the the application form for new out-of-district students, and concluded the meeting’s new business by approving the Chromebooks purchase.
