By Matt Pedigo, The Citizen-Times, February 18, 2016
Meeting for its February regular session Monday, the Allen County Board of Education approved school calendars for next year and the remainder of this one, given snow days.
The board also ended a weeks-long process of choosing an architectural firm to design coming renovations at James E. Bazzell Middle School.
The Calendars
Director of Pupil Personnel Garry DeWitt was on the agenda to provide an attendance report—which, thanks to intermittent snow days, he wasn’t able to provide.
“We haven’t been in school for 20 days since January 12,” he said.
What he could provide was a proposal for amending the current school year’s calendar to make up the eight days the District had missed to snow as of Monday (this does not include the day missed Tuesday, a decision made after this meeting).
DeWitt noted that the school day schedule had been built with enough extra minutes each day to “bank” a total of instructional equivalent to four snow days. He also proposed using Monday, March 21—which had been scheduled as a professional development day for teachers—as a make-up day as well as Good Friday, March 25. As Superintendent Randall Jackson noted, a special exemption from the state could allow Tuesday, May 17 to be used as a make-up day as well.
That’s primary Election Day, but the District could qualify for the exemption because, with its sale of the old White Plains Elementary School, there are no longer any school properties being used as polling locations.
Without that, DeWitt proposed tacking on the remaining make-up days on to the end of the year, making students’ last day of school Friday, May 20—if no more days are missed. Teachers would make up some professional development days the following week. The proposal allows for a 170-school day year, and meets state instructional-time requirements, with 1,062 instructional hours.
The board approved.
The move leaves Spring Break, set for Monday through Friday, Apr. 4-8, untouched.
Next, the board approved the calendar for the upcoming 2016-2017 school year. Some significant dates:
•First day for students, Thursday, Aug. 4.
•Fall Break, Monday-Friday, Oct. 3-7.
•Thanksgiving: Wednesday-Friday, Nov. 23-25.
•Christmas break: Monday, Dec, 19-Monday, Jan. 3, 2017.
•Spring Break: Monday-Friday, Apr. 3-7.
•Last day for students: If no snow days remain to be made up, Thursday, May 18 will be the last day of school for students, and for teachers, the following day.
•Holidays: September 5, Labor Day; Martin Luther King Day, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017; and Monday, May 29 (if the school year lasts that long), Memorial Day.
•Professional development days for teachers (no school for students), Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 1-3, Monday, Sept, 19, Monday, Oct. 17, Monday, Nov. 7 and Monday, Feb. 20, 2017.
JEBMS Architectural Firm Selected
For the last several weeks, the board had been meeting in work sessions to hear proposals from architectural firms hoping to design upcoming major renovations to JEBMS.
On February 8, the board, having narrowed the field down to two firms—Lexington-based RossTarrant Architects and Sherman Carter Barnhart Architects, also of Lexington—had called both back for follow-up interviews.
In those interviews, RossTarrant Principal Ronald E. Murrell and Project Manager Melinda Joseph-Dezarn represented their firm, while Sherman Carter Barnhart brought the team of Principal Kenny Stanfield, Project Manager Jamison Sills, Interior Designer Allison Commings, Construction Administrator Mitch Hunter and Ralph Whitley of a partner firm, Shrout Tate Wilson, also of Lexington, which had helped design the renovations at Allen County-Scottsville High School.
Both RossTarant and Sherman Carter Barnhart specialized in school projects, and each complimented the other as being their chief competitors.
Improvements to the 1988 school include general cosmetic remodelling as well as upgrading its technological, intercom and security infrastructure, plus lighting for added energy efficiency. Its library media center, classrooms and cafeteria would also get facelifts for a more modern look, as would its entranceways in front and in the rear of the lobby, by the cafeteria.
Both firms also offered alternate options if budgets allowed, such as window upgrades to boost energy efficiency. When Jackson made it clear that the District needed to stick with the project’s overall price tag of around $6.1 million (funded through bond sales) both firms said they could do it.
Stanfield said Sherman Carter Barnhart had assembled the team they brought with them for the interview had been assembled specifically for this project, and would be the people the board would deal with throughout. They also provided conceptual drawings with possible ideas for each phase. In the end, the board went with them.
The board also approved hiring the Glasgow-based Alliance Corporation for construction management in the JEBMS project. This is the same firm that oversaw the recently-completed construction of the new Allen County Career and Technical Center.
•Last summer, as the Allen County Intermediate Center geared up to implement the nationally-acclaimed “Leader in Me” school program, the founder of the program, Raleigh, N.C,. Principal Muriel Summers, came to train ACIC faculty personally. Faculty and administrators alike praised the training.
In Monday’s meeting, ACIC Principal Shawn Holland announced that Summers was coming back this July 26-27 to again conduct professional development for ACIC educators.
•Based on substantial savings, Director of District Operations recommended renewal of the District’s copier bid with Konica-Minolta, for the second year of a possible five-year service plan. Carter said the cost of the change had been about $6,000, but had brought about savings of $11,493, for a net savings of nearly $5,500.