PRAIRIE GROVE -- School Board members last week were not too sure about the proposed route of the street to extend Viney Grove Road from in front of the new school to Buchanan Street.
Chuck Wiley, the city's public works director, attended the April 19 meeting to talk about the plans.
Later in the week, Wiley said he was caught a little by surprise by the board members' concerns. His main reason for being at the meeting, he said, was to show the board proposed plans to build a berm on the property to help with drainage.
He said he was under the impression that board members were already aware of the design plans for the street extension, noting city officials have been in discussion with the administration about the design.
"We want to try to figure out where communication has broken down," Wiley said.
The plans show that the street extension will curve southwest from the school, cross the creek and then connect to West Buchanan Street. Wiley said the city is planning to build a culvert over the creek, instead of a traditional bridge, to reduce costs.
Several board members said they had not seen this design and they thought the street was supposed to be a "straight" connection to Buchanan.
"That's our best land," said board member Shawn Shrum referring to the land that would be used for the new street. "We thought it was straight across."
Board member William Dick said the district would lose more than 20 acres under the proposed route for the street.
Shrum noted the proposed route may be best for the city, but it's not best for the school.
Wiley told board members that he would go back to the consulting engineers to discuss their concerns. With the current design, the city only has one creek crossing. If the street goes directly south to Buchanan, the city would have to cross the creek in two places.
Later in the week, Wiley, who has been with the city for about 16 months, said he had done more research and the reason for the current design is because the new street would only cross the creek one time and also that it would line up with Blunt Street on the other side of Buchanan. The city's master street plan shows that eventually Blunt Street will connect to the bypass.
Wiley said he would return to the School Board next month to continue discussions about the design.
"This is the most optimum route," Wiley said.
He had wanted to get the board members' comments about the proposed berm.
"That's what I wanted to show them, but we didn't even talk about that," Wiley said.
School bus purchase
In other action, the board authorized the school to purchase a "leased return" school bus with around 35,000-40,000 miles for $78,500 from Midwest Bus Sales of Van Buren, if the bus passes inspection.
Kellogg said a new bus would cost more than $115,000, and he's not sure when the district would be able to get one because of shortages and supply issues.
"My concern is we won't see the shortages go away soon," Kellogg said. "If we don't get this bus (the leased return), I don't think we're going to get a bus."
Addressing learning loss
Assistant Superintendent Pete Joenks said the district has applied for a $60,000 grant that, if approved, would be used to purchase literacy curriculum for fourth-sixth grades. These grades are struggling the most due to the loss of instructional time because of the covid-19 pandemic, Joenks said.
In addition, Joenks said the district is going to use some of its federal covid money to hire additional staff to help students in grades 3-6 with reading and to help middle school students in math.
Joenks said staff will be available this summer if any students ask for additional instruction. The high school will have credit recovery for those students who need it. Most of this is online, with a teacher available to facilitate, Joenks said.
New Electronic Devices
The board approved recommendations from Shawn Witt, chief information officer and security, to purchase a total of 820 electronic tablets, laptops or desktops for students and faculty, if the district receives a grant from a federal emergency connectivity program.
The grant covers up to $400 for each device.
The board approved purchasing the following devices, if funding is secured:
• 161 Lenovo 300e Chromebooks from Vivacity for $56,189 for kindergarten and first grade.
• 505 HP Chromebooks from ITSavvy for $132,595 for second, third and fourth grades.
• 154 Dell Latitute laptops for $107,043 for full-time, certified staff. The district's portion of this is $45,443.
The board also approved another recommendation to purchase 40 Dell Precision touchscreen desktops for $51,406 for the high school's engineering lab.
In other news, the district will use contingency funds, instead of a change order, for $104,105 in additional expenses for the middle school under construction. These include a basketball slab, sidewalk along Viney Grove Road, playground sod and 16 additional parking spots. This would leave a balance of about $119,000 in the contingency fund.