Board hears progress on policies

Friday, March 16, 2007

CLOVERDALE -- On Monday, Cloverdale Community School Corp. Supt. Carrie Milner gave the school board a progress report on a project the corporation has been working on since July 2006.

Milner informed the board Monday that she had recently received a draft from NEOLA, a group the corporation met with in July regarding setting policies and administrative guidelines.

Milner told the board Monday she recently received a draft copy from NEOLA.

"It's about 4 inches thick," she said.

In July, the board learned from NEOLA representative Bob Hartman that corporations taking advantage of the program will go through five phases, including NEOLA conducting an analysis of the corporations' policies before producing a policy manual that can consist of 10 chapters and setting administrative guidelines and regular updates.

On Monday, Milner said she plans on going through the draft as soon as possible.

"We want to get some fine-tuning," she said, "to make sure no pieces were left out.

"This has been such an incredibly long process. But it's important."

Meanwhile, the board approved the corporation to move ahead into the second phase of completion of design documents.

Since December, the board has been working with Odle McGuire and Shook, an architectural firm in Indianapolis, on upgrades for athletic facilities in addition to improved security measures at the corporation's three school buildings.

In December, Milner approached the board with three projects wrapped into one proposal, calling for a health, safety and code compliance project, including:

-- Gymnasium bleachers and guardrail replacement at the high school, and

-- Security access control at all three corporation buildings.

In addition, Milner called for a sports and athletic project, including:

-- Replacement of the football field bleachers and press box and accessibility in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and

-- Baseball field improvements to include a re-grade/landscape.

The board has worked with the Indianapolis firm since December regarding the project.

In December, Milner told the board the estimated cost for the project, without the baseball field improvements, was roughly $996,000. However, she said adding the improvements to the baseball field would push the estimated cost to roughly $1 million.

But in January, the board shifted its focus, saying it wanted time to decide which items should be addressed first.

The project originally called for two phases, the first of which is schematic design from the architectural firm, in order to analyze the items. The second phase of the project called for the completion of the projects through bidding and construction.

On Monday, Milner only asked the board for approval to move ahead into the second phase of the project, with the board voting 6-0 in favor.

Milner added the architects planned to attend the board's April meeting to go over changes the board have discussed.

In other news, the board:

-- Recognized elementary student Laura Worthington, middle school student Kylee Pinney and high school student Stephanie Tutterow as Students of the Month.

-- Approved 13 facility use requests.

-- Approved 15 professional leave requests, although board member Todd Whitlock stressed to the principals in attendance at Monday's meeting that he hoped different teachers would take advantage of professional leave and not the same teachers on a monthly basis.

-- Approved nine field trip requests.

-- Approved the hiring of Nathan Aker as head varsity football coach by a 6-0 vote.

-- Approved the hiring of 27 intramural basketball coaches spanning from the first grade to the eighth grade.

-- Approved Greg Ratliff to replace elementary physical education teacher Elaine Bollhorst, who is going on maternity leave.

The board meets regularly on the second Monday of each month. Its next meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m., April 9.

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