The Early Learning Center’s new playground is underway and Superintendent Stu Moeckel shared photos of the plans with the board at Thursday’s meeting.
The existing area has been pulled out and asphalt has been torn up, with hopes of the project being completed by August.
In other business, school officials don’t expect to see a large influx of new students through open enrollment but discussed Thursday night how they will handle the new state policy.
A new law requires districts to permit any Kansas student to enroll in and attend their schools. With open enrollment beginning this year, Kansas school boards have to set a capacity for how many students from outside the district boundaries can join each grade level or building.
Superintendent Stu Moeckel presented the School Board with a draft of the district’s potential nonresident enrollment capacities.
The draft takes into account projected enrollment numbers for next year, and the larger graduation classes that will be phasing out. The draft presents the following capacities for additional students to each grade:
Kindergarten: 10 students
1st grade: 27 students
2nd grade: 20 students
3rd grade: 4 students
4th grade: 33 students
5th grade: 27 students
6th grade: 36 students
7th grade: 31 students
8th grade: 31 students
9th grade: 0 students
10th grade: 9 students
11th grade: 8 students
12th grade: 28 students
The board also discussed the potential of just setting an outright total for building capacity for the high school of 600 students, instead of a grade breakdown. The board will likely adopt the policy at its next meeting in April.
This has to be approved by May, and must be published to the schools site by June. New families will apply on the district’s website. If there are more applicants for a certain grade than the capacity allows, it will go to a lottery. The board will revisit and adopt new capacities each year.
Families with students transferring to a grade with space will also be allowed to bring other siblings, even if the other grade is at capacity. Staff will also likely be able to have their out-of-district child stay in the district, but the legislation was not clear on this, Moeckel said.
Board member Claire Harding asked Moeckel what he has heard from other districts and what they expect.
“The bigger districts, you know, think east of us, they’re concerned – they’ve had closed borders for many years,” Moeckel said. “We have traditionally had open borders here for many years. So I go back to I think Mr. Hurla said this this fall, do we really think this is going to impact us more than it currently has been? A little, but I don’t know that we’re going to see a massive flood of 100 students this year.”
Moeckel and Board President Mark Chrislip agreed the new policy may take families a couple ofyears to use the new rules to the full capacity.
In other business, after last week’s Planning Commission meeting,Moeckel updated the board about the two projects discussed as not up to city code.
The first project, the extension of the gravel lot behind the high school, was done without approval by the Planning Commission. Although the lot has been there since the school’s inception, extending it and placing gravel there broke city code.
Moeckel told commissioners he would come back with a plan after discussion with the board. To bring the lot up to code, the school district would have to asphalt it or remove the new gravel.
After receiving a quote that the project would cost $130,620 in earthwork and $59,684 in asphalt, Moeckel told the board he didn’t feel like that was the best use of funds. Moeckel said he met with city staff and hopes to have another conversation about making the lot a “temporary parking lot” since it is not used other than for overflow.
Moeckel plans to meet with the Planning Commission again during the April meeting in hopes of resolving the issue.
Board member Heather Whalen agreed that titling the parking lot as temporary is a good idea, especially as construction cuts off some of the back parking lot.
“It feels to me that space is going to be pretty critical in several different events over the next year and so I feel common sense can prevail,” Whalen said.
The other project – which the district thought was cleared with the city but was a misunderstanding – is for an addition in the parking lot behind the bus storage building. The dirt work is done, and originally was going to be a gravel addition before the project was called off.
Moeckel told the board he felt it would make sense to gravel this area since it will be used for parking for the buses for the foreseeable future and would cost less since dirt work is already done. The asphalt will cost around $20,000. Moeckel will return to the Planning Commission with an update that the board plans to asphalt the area.
Middle School Principal Jeremy Thomas also presented his yearly update to the board. Last year, they had a building-wide goal to increase student opportunities and participation in school activities outside of the academic day.
Thomas said the middle school increased student involvement by 3% in before- and after-school activities or extracurricular clubs. Enrichment programs like the grilling club, no bake club, fashion club and others have helped reach that goal.
About 94% of sixth graders are involved in one of these extracurriculars, 99% of seventh graders and 98% of eighth graders.
In other business, the district approved a bid from American Digital Security to perform security updates throughout the district as part of the bond. The $469,000 project will provide new secure entrances for the middle school and Early Learning Center. The entrances will mirror that of the elementary school.
The high school will also have a large overhaul of the security camera system, bringing many new cameras to the inside and outside of the building. There will also be security camera improvements for the expansion of the Early Learning Center.
The project will also include new door access controls for the auxiliary gym and new classrooms at the high school.
The school’s existing door access is through American Digital Security, so the new features should be a seamless addition, IT Director Ron Long said.
The Early Learning Center’s new playground is underway. The existing area has been pulled out and asphalt has been torn up. Moeckel shared photos of the plans with the board.
The board also approved a bid to improve communication technology throughout the district, a project also part of the bond. The district currently has physical phones with service through Midco, but the new service will be on the cloud.
It will eventually allow teachers and other district employees to have software-type phones through their district computers or through their cell phones without revealing their personal numbers.
The new service will also provide new physical phones for those who already have them or those who want them in the future, but will allow for more flexibility within the district, Long said. The one-time cost to set up the new system will be $13,900, with a monthly fee of about $1,654 for a three-year contract.
It is an increase in monthly fees, but moving communication to the cloud will alleviate more changes needed in the future. The monthly fee, which is more of a payment for software, will also change depending on what staff needs are.
A bid from Delta Innovative Services for major roof repairs for the high school and early learning center were approved by the board also. While a majority of the work will be done on those two buildings, the middle school will also receive some repairs. The roofing at the high school will cost $2,426,500, and $661,500 at the Early Learning Center.Roofing will start this summer.
Sean Gordon with Gordon CPA presented the annual audit of the district’s financials. Gordon said the district received the highest and cleanest opinion it can get for the 2023 financial statements.
That opinion reflects well on the financial internal control management during the year, he said. Gordon had no recommendations for the district this year. For the grant audit for the year, Gordon said they focused on the Title 1 migrant program. He said this program’s grant management received the highest and cleanest opinion possible.
Reach reporter Sara Maloney at [email protected].
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