Jasper School Board: Student technology upgrade granted
The Greater Jasper School Board of Trustees took steps to implement new technology upgrades for the school system in Monday night’s meeting.
Superintendent Dr. Tracy Lorey began the process of upgrading the school-wide wireless system to allow connectivity of two thousand devices to use in a one-to-one computing environment where each student in grades 6 through 12 has his or her own computer.
Monday night, the board approved the purchase of UnoBook touchscreen laptops with Windows 8, sourced from CDI in Chicago.
Dr. Lorey told the board that the computers will be issued to students using the same procedure as textbooks and will require the student to pay for the use of the units through a fee.
The board approved the annual cost of $334,000.00; 75 percent will come from the rainy day fund and 25 percent will be passed along to each student as a $45 rental fee.
The cost of each computer would include an amount for insurance that would cover an onsite hot-swap inventory to help with break-fix activities.
Board attorney Art Nordhoff is seeking quotes from area banks for a lease agreement.
The board also approved an expenditure of $22,000 to Canvas Learning System out of Utah for an online subscription based service for use by students and teachers in the tracking of lesson content, accepting student homework assignments, grading student work, and communicating individually.
During the meeting the board also heard of several building and maintenance issues at several of the school facilities.
Clerk of the Works Scott Stenftenagel reported that failing equipment is a problem at Ireland Elementary. He said that they have experienced an additional $15,000 in expenses on the heating ventilation and air conditioning system at Ireland due to the age of the units there — they are 25 years old.
He also reported Fifth Street is fighting a periodic water problem caused by heavy rains that produced flooding in low-lying areas around the Patoka River in Jasper.
The storm water backed up into the basement of the school. Jasper Street Commissioner Raymie Eckerle was consulted on the matter and he told the school that the storm water system is working at capacity. According to Eckerle, when there is a lot of water in a short period of time as in recent storms, the backup of water in the system in the downtown area is inevitable and unavoidable.
The board acknowledged the problem of the school being in the flood zone.
Stenftenagel asked for and received permission to accept low quotes on the roof projects at Jasper High School and Ireland Elementary. The bid for the high school was awarded to Hedinger Roofing at $248,000 and $31,250 to Schmidt Contracting for the Ireland project.
Curriculum Director Kim Strobel also gave an update on ISTEP testing activities. She said the validity and results of the online portion of the testing is in question due to multiple issues with the test-taking process. During the testing, the state board of education told schools to use the online portion but they soon recanted their statement and told schools to got to the paper/pencil version. During the online testing, Strobel said that the school system has seen instances of lockups and then students finding that all of the work they had performed on the test was lost.
The board also took the following actions.
-Approved a quote from Hopf Equipment for $21,600 for a new lawn tractor.
-Heard that the JHS soccer and football fields will be graded and re-sprigged by Turfmasters with new grass in preparation for the fall sports season.
-Approved the proposed budget timeline requested by Dr. Lorey. She reported that it would be presented in July, and in a public meeting in August, with adoption in September.
-Approved renewing property and casualty insurance at a cost of $221,162.00 — a reduction of $20,374.00.
-Heard that school lunch and breakfast prices would remain the same for next school year.
