EMMA — In Thursday evening’s Westview School Board meeting, Superintendent Randy Zimmerly addressed several of the buildings and grounds projects that will be coming up, including the track project and building projects at various schools.
“We are exploring separating the track and soccer venues,” Zimmerly said.
Currently, the track surrounds the soccer field, but because of changes in requirements for the size of soccer fields made by the Indiana High School Athletic Association, that’s no longer practical.
Zimmerly said, “What I would recommend is that we move forward with the schematic of this design.”
According to Zimmerly, this includes pricing the cost of moving the track to the east side of the school property and to get more accurate estimates than those currently available. This requires doing a site survey and soil borings, to determine if the soil is OK and what equipment needs to be used to make it happen. This will cost about $8,000, but will let the board determine the best location for the track.
“These are pretty much expenses that have to happen anyway,” said board member Carrie Schrock.
“No matter what we do, we’re looking at a $400,000 expense,” Zimmerly said. But he feels that completing the design schematic would provide a more accurate estimate. The board unanimously agreed to complete the design schematic, a site survey and soil boring.
Building projects
Other building projects the board agreed to included replacing the windows and the walls with the windows in the high school with the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning stimulus funds.
“Payback is not tremendous on this, but there is a payback,” Zimmerly said. A boiler and heater need to be replaced at Westview Elementary and a boiler needs replaced at Meadowview Elementary. Some windows need to be replaced in Topeka and Shipshewana elementary schools, as well.
Some roofs also need to be replaced. “Typically, your rule of thumb is you replace the ones that are the oldest,” Zimmerly said, adding that the oldest ones aren’t always those that need repairs the most.
So the roofs will be tested and aerial photos taken to see which ones will be replaced first.
Curriculum, instruction and assessment
Director of Curriculum Bob Evans said that the board is implementing a “Response to Intervention” process in the schools.
“Essentially, it’s a way of identifying people that are struggling academically,” he said.
Students who need extra help can be given it without falling into the special education category.
“Hopefully,” Evans said, “there won’t be any gaps and kids will have intervention in math, reading and writing.”
Evans also gave some preliminary Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress results. In the 2008-2009 school year, students took the exam twice, once in the fall, and once in the summer to get into a new testing schedule. Evans compared the results with the district’s averages from the last five years.
“Right now, I think there’s a lot of positives,” he said. He compared the results to neighboring school districts, and Westview did better overall. “As always, there are areas we can work on more.”
Teacher contract
The Westview school district teachers agreed to a status quo contract for this school year.
Board member Gerald Lee said, “I think it says a lot about the character of our teachers that they approve a status quo contract. And on behalf of the board, I’d like to thank them.”
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